My son, Kirk, and I were ready to begin a flight home from Trinity Center, an unattended airport in northern California, when we found that the alternator on our rented Piper Warrior wasn't working.
There were no maintenance facilities in the area, so we decided to get airborne and turn off all the electrical equipment until we got to an airport with a mechanic.
We landed at Redding and called the fixed-base operator at Van Nuys, where we had rented the airplane. After a five-hour delay while we waited for permission to get it fixed and the repairs were made, we left Redding with no hope of reaching Van Nuys in daylight. The flight was carefully planned to be completely VFR, and the weather forecast confirmed that this would be the case.
As the sky changed from daylight to dark, we came abeam Bakersfield. We could see the airport beacon about 10 miles to the east, so it looked as though we would have clear weather. We still had to cross the mountain range that separates the Los Angeles Basin from the San Joaquin Valley. I had flown through the pass known to drivers as the grapevine many times — VFR.
Although we had had VFR flight following thus far, Bakersfield Approach dropped us and we couldn't get a hand-off to Burbank Approach. Thinking that I was going to just cruise on down to Van Nuys, following Interstate 5, I didn't try to communicate with anyone for a while.
As I started descending from the top of the Grapevine I wondered, where am I? It looked like an ocean. I had flown in clouds during my training, but I had never seen a sea of clouds like that. I realized that the cloud layer covered the entire area. This was not forecast.
Even though I'd flown the Van Nuys instrument approaches many times, this felt different. I called Burbank Approach, and when they gave me a transponder code, I learned that I was about five miles off course. I had not been adjusting the heading indicator to be in agreement with the magnetic compass and was about 20 degrees off on my heading, and far from where I thought I was. This eliminated the possibility of a straight-in approach to the ILS. The controller gave me vectors as I descended into the clouds — a frightening feeling.
I had been awake for about 15 hours and most of those hours had been stressful; I was angry at the Van Nuys FBO for wasting time in giving approval for the repair work and at the mechanic at Redding for taking so long; I was mad at Bakersfield Approach for dropping me when I needed them; and I was mad at myself for not checking the weather again, for not planning for an instrument approach, and for not staying on course.
The third vector that I was given was too much. I lost my situational awareness and became totally disoriented. I was overreacting to the attitude of the airplane; my senses were not agreeing with what the instruments were telling me. I heard the controller call my N number and get frantic when I wasn't answering. I was trying to regain control of the airplane and couldn't divert my attention by talking to him.
Fortunately, Kirk was not disoriented. When the sound of the engine made me think we were diving, he told me the airplane was about to stall — and it was. He woke me up to what the instruments were saying — the nose was way too high and the airspeed had dropped to nearly 50 mph. I hadn't even heard the stall warning. We were seconds away from a stall and spin — and possibly a big mess.
I got the nose down and the airspeed up, and I regained level flight. I then responded to the controller, who must have feared for the outcome of the flight.
When he realized that I was back in control, he asked if I wanted to try the instrument approach again or go to an alternate airport. I asked him to get me above the clouds and point me toward Gen. William J. Fox Airfield (in Lancaster), about 40 miles away and in VFR conditions.
I had just received my instrument rating, but because I was so ill-prepared, I came very close to committing some fatal errors. I hadn't thought about being low on fuel, because the flight planning allowed for enough fuel to get to an alternate airport. With our diversions and a little headwind, it was getting worrisome. After awhile, we were handed off to Joshua Approach and given our position in relation to Fox field.
I didn't see the airport and may have flown right by it if Kirk hadn't seen the runway lights. We made a perfect landing on Runway 24.
The next day we learned that there was less than a gallon of fuel in the tanks. If Kirk hadn't seen the runway when he did, or if we had needed to go around, we wouldn't have made it.
I guess our guardian angels were with us that night, but they were working overtime. How do I know? Just try to count the number of lessons to be learned from this flight.
In the 11 years since this incident, Bob Daniels has begun flying for the Civil Air Patrol as a search-and-rescue pilot.
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