An Exciting Flight Around Daytona Beach

My cousin, Mike, and his family recently moved to Florida from New Mexico and are visiting the C&D B&B. Since we haven't had a chance to fly over to visit them in Panama City, we drove up to visit yesterday. While visiting we discussed the possibility of going for a flight. So today, we made it happen.

I started the day by flying around the Melbourne pattern to reacquaint myself with the plane. The weather was great, but there was a strong crosswind with gusts to ensure I was paying full attention to the situation. Two times around the pattern and I was ready to load my family and head to Sanford.

The flight to Sanford was typical, with a little excitement caused by an incorrect frequency on my chart. At Sanford, I was directed to runway 9 Right, but was finally asked where I was parking, at which point they assigned me 9 Left. After landing, I parked and dropped off Susan and Andrew.

Mike was waiting with his wife, Heather, and younger son, Brandon. We loaded up and took off toward Deland. It was a very short flight, so I didn't have time to let Brandon fly the plane. I'll have to get him up again and let him take the controls.

As we approached Deland, I was surprised by the complete lack of activity. There were no planes in the pattern and more surprisingly, no parachutists. On the ground, I taxied around searching for a building that looked like a restaurant. I finally found it and, although it looked closed, it was open. We ordered teas and lemonade and relaxed for awhile.

Before long, I decided to get moving again and we walked back to the plane. With the big race scheduled for Saturday night, I thought it might be fun to fly around Daytona Beach and let my passengers see the track from a different perspective. So we climbed into the plane and headed east, this time with Mike in the front seat.

As soon as I leveled off, I contacted Daytona Approach to let them know my plan. While busy writing numbers and squawking codes, I noticed my Gear Warning light illuminate on my glare shield. I hadn't touched the gear lever and neither did Mike, so I was a little mystified. I probably stared at it for five seconds, trying to figure out why it was on. During this time, I felt the increased drag of the gear hanging in the slipstream of the plane. I first told myself and then my passengers that this was uncommon, but not an emergency situation. Daytona Approach vectored me around the airport to the northeast while I concentrated on NOT being distracted by the warning light. Once over the beach and heading south, I allowed myself to think about the gear situation. I put the gear knob in the down position and nothing happened. I put the knob in the up position and nothing happened. Then I thought about the gear system for a second and checked the circuit breaker. It was popped out. OK, that made sense. I asked Mike to reset it and the gear lifted back into the wings and the warning light went out. I lowered the gear and got the reassuring glow of three down and locked lights. I put the gear back up and all seemed fine. A few moments later, the warning light was back on... then off... then on again. While the light changed from off to on and back, I noticed that the ammeter and voltmeter were both bouncing wildly. I had Mike pull the breaker again. It was now clear that the gear would not stay up. Leaving the circuit breaker set would likely result in some type of significant damage, so that was not an option. The only option left was to briefly set the breaker, lower the gear, and pull the breaker. So that's what we did.

We were planning to return to Sanford, but given the circumstances, Mike suggested we fly back to Melbourne so I could have the plane checked out at home. I thought that was a fantastic idea. I hit Melbourne Direct on my GPS and continued to the south. The airspeed indicator, which usually shows something in the 130+ range was showing 95 knots. The ground speed on the GPS showed 77 knots. Oh my, we were in for a long, slow, hot flight home. My mind quickly turned to my fuel situation and my fuel analyzer and I determined that we had over two hours in the tank. So I tried to sit back, relax, and enjoy the flight that reminded me of my early training days in a Cessna 152.

As we flew south, I pointed out New Smyrna Beach and the Ponce de Leon Inlet lighthouse and other landmarks along the route. Soon we came upon a low cloud layer and had to descend to 1,500 feet to get below it. That's when the turbulence kicked in. And soon after that, I thought I heard Mike say something that sounded like "sick". I said, "What???" He replied that he was going to be sick. He pulled a plastic bag out of his pocket and proceeded using it. Unfortunately, his aim was less that totally accurate. OH JOY!

So now, I was feeling bad for having a broken plane, feeling bad for making everyone fly low, slow, and hot all the way to Melbourne, and feeling bad for making Mike sick. Turns out the third one was not my fault. He explained that the pizza he ate earlier wasn't sitting well and that's why he had a plastic bag in his pocket. I tried to joke around and keep a positive attitude for the remaining 20 minutes of the flight.

The arrival to Melbourne was ordinary, except for the strong crosswind. I landed safely and I taxied back to my parking spot with my door held open to let in some cool (relatively), fresh air. Once parked, we summed up the indigestion damages. I decided to sacrifice the seat cover rather than trying to clean it. We transferred to my CR-V and headed home. I figured a half hour of stink was all I could take. At home, I grabbed a clean shirt for Mike and he wrapped up his contaminated shirt tightly in another plastic bag. What a flight.