Beechcraft Musketeer Sport III 19A VH-SQB
Leg 9: Narrogin to Perth (Jandakot)
Woke up a bit nervous, we had noticed a rough mag agin during our shutdown checks. We suspected that it was related to the oil problem. We seemed to be losing a lot of oil, and getting fouled plugs.
We got to the airstrip, and Simon tested the mags. Sure enough, one side was running roughly, and he couldn't clear it. We put fuel into Squibby, and spoke to the glider pilots. Again, we were very lucky, because there were a number of knowledgable glider pilots on hand, and the weather conditions were such that they couldn't get up, so they were just hanging around.
| Simon trying to clear the rough running |
They had tools, and we were able to take off all the spark plugs. We found our culprit, the rear left cylinder had both plugs completely fouled up with oil. Here was our leak. Our plan today was to get to Jandakot (where we could get mechanics), taking the shortest route over the Darling scarp. Even minimising time over the forest, by cutting due West instead of directly North-West to Jandakot, still meant we would get about 10-15 minutes of hills and thick trees - not an ideal landscape if we were not fully confident in the engine.
We were able to clean up the plugs, and declared we would see how it went. We still got a bit of a rough running on a mag, but elected to take-off anyway, and at least see how we went over farmland. I was flying, and Simon was monitoring our RPM during takeoff, and noted that our RPM were down on normal, and our climb-rate reflected that, we were only getting around 300 ft per minute. Slow enough that Simon recommended I make a right turn because of the hills in front, meaning that we were flying against the circuit direction. It was quite a tense takeoff. We again had a howling tail wind pushing us towards Perth, and we were climbing quite nicely. We passed Williams and were rapidly approaching the forest. Our plan was to get as much height as possible before we reached the trees.
| The glider's tug plane was driving around. |
However, not far after Williams, the engine gave a nasty cough. It ran rough for a few moments, and was concerning enough that we started to look for paddocks again. The engine picked up a bit, but we looked at each other and said "No, it's not good, let's not do this. Let's just return to Narrogin." Neither of us felt like taking a risk, even if it was just 15 minutes. It was disappointing, after flying across the whole country, to turn back so close to the end, but neither of us felt like taking such an unnecessary risk. So we turned back to Narrogin.
Interestingly, we were now into a howling headwind, so it took a long time to return to Narrogin. And the engine seemed to behave perfectly. But we had had enough, and had no thoughts except returning to Narrogin. We even did a straight-in approach, to get on the ground as soon as possible.
So we tied up VH-SQB, which had done such a valiant job for most of the trip, and called my long-suffering parents for yet more assistance. They were able to lend us a car to get us to Perth in time for Simon's departure. In Perth we visited Jandakot, spoke to the LAME at both Royal Aero Club of WA, and Mark's LAME, Ryan. They were all extremely friendly and professional. So this is where this stage of the adventure ended - with Simon back in Melbourne, me needing a big sleep in Perth, and SQB stranded at Narrogin, awaiting a mechanic's attention.
I was disappointed about how the journey ended, but on the other hand, we were incredibly lucky. Flying across the country took us to some pretty remote places. There would have been some much worse places we could have lost oil pressure. And there could have been much worse places to leave Squibby deserted than Narrogin. It could have been much, much worse.
Also, it was a great experience to have a mechanical fault in flight, not that I'd ever want it to happen again. I definitely learnt some lessons that will make me a safer pilot in the future. Simon was very keen to land, when I would probably have wanted to keep heading to Lake Grace for longer. It turned out that he made a great decision.
It was great to have two pilots in the cockpit when things went wrong. When we lost oil pressure, we were already under stress, due to the heat, the rough mag problems, the long flying time, and the navigation which had gone haywire for the first time on the entire trip. Neither of us would have liked to be on our own when the oil pressure was dropping. We were able to bounce ideas off one another, and Simon could concentrate on flying, while I could look at the maps and the GPS - it shared the workload, and allowed us to calmly discuss our options. And despite all the stress, we never argued, or seriously disagreed. After a quick discussion, we would invariably agree on a course of action, confident that we were making sensible decisions. I hope I can fly that calmly and sensibly in the future, if I ever get another mechanical fault and I'm the only pilot in the aircraft.
And I had some great days of flying, getting views of the world which left me feeling priveleged to be a pilot. For the foreseeable future, my flying will be local flying around Perth, so it will be interesting to see what that's like after such an adventure.
| The Narrogin airstrip. Unfortunately this marked the end of the journey. |