Flying and Fire

"You start with a bag full of luck and an empty bag of experience. The trick is to fill the bag of experience before you empty the bag of luck." - Pilot Folklore

Somewhere Over Montana - Pardon the Crappy Photo - Was Busy Flying an Airplane

Cruise checklist complete. Music is playing. Montana, here I come!

A few thousand feet below me the world scrolls by at a few hundred miles an hour, as if you're on a high speed treadmill watching the landscape ahead twist and turn as you inch closer to your destination.

Beyond the left wing, the snow-capped Rocky Mountains soar into the sky. Beyond the right wing, the eastern plains of Colorado stretch into the distance. Through my noise cancelling headset I have some tunes piped in from a pre-made playlist that I made specifically for this flight.

Great weather. Rocking tunes playing. Smooth air. Everything's looking great.

POP comes a loud noise from the dashboard and white smoke suddenly starts pouring out of the dash and into my face.

Aaaahhh fuck, I say to myself.

Instinctively I reduce the engine power with my right hand and my left hand immediately flicks the avionics master switch off. All my avionics go black, the tunes cut out and the engine noise is suddenly very loud now that the noise cancelling is no more.

I pop open the window next to me, adding the rushing noise of wind going a few hundred miles an hour to the engine noise.

My eyes dart to the fire extinguisher that's between the two front seats, strapped to the floor. Not yet... if I see flames then I'll break that out, I say to myself.

I spot a good field below me that I can land in if I need to. Fire is one of the most dangerous things to an airplane. Not so much a fire in the engine or on the wing, you can use the wind to your advantage to get those out fairly quickly. Fire in the cabin though can cause a lot more problems, extremely fast. If you ever want to see how fast an airplane can get on the ground, just give a pilot a cabin fire scenario and you will find out and it will be way faster then you ever imagined and if you're on the plane, you will throw up from the roller coaster of a ride.

My eyes are watering from being blasted with smoke, I'm trying to keep them closed each blink for a little longer than normal to try and flush out the smoke but I also need to see where I'm going and I need to be on the lookout for other airplanes around me, I'm in a very high traffic area that's not the best spot to be distracted in. Meanwhile my lungs feel seared as my body reflexively tries to cough it all out.

The smoke slowly fizzles out now that all of the power to all of the avionics have been turned off.

Well that's good, I say to myself, pleased with the results so far. I'm definitely going back to the airport though, can't go to Montana in this condition.

I check for traffic around me, do a 180 degree turn, level off and push the throttle forward into the firewall to coax the engine into getting me back to the airport as fast as it can. Balls to the wall. I reach across the cabin and open the window on the other side to clear out the smoke faster and let in more fresh air. Extremely loud, fresh air.

Hard to talk to anyone though with the avionics off. Welp, this should be interesting I mumble to myself. In these types of situations, talking to yourself is a great way to keep yourself calm, on track and aware of what you're doing.

Let's see what happens I say as my left hand debates turning the avionics switch back on.

Avionics master on. Screens light up as they burst back to life. Headset (and noise cancelling) click back on.

Nobody's talking on the radio so my finger instantly presses the mic. button.

Metro tower, Skylane 10100 declaring an emergency, smoke in cockpit, 12 miles north inbound, need light gun signals, need light gun signals.

Half way through my transmission, smoke starts pouring out of the dash and into my face again.

November 10100, Metro Tower, roger... My hand flicks the avionics master switch back off, not waiting to hear what all they have to say as I start coughing. The smoke stops now that the power is back off again. There's definitely a problem with the wiring in the avionics.

Welp, hopefully they heard everything... this should be very interesting I say to myself with a sigh.

My eyes are peeled looking for other airplanes as I hurl back towards the high traffic airport at a much faster than normal rate without any avionics or any instrumentation and worst of all... no music. Just good ol' fashion looking out the windows, using landmarks to navigate and scanning non-stop for other airplanes that may be in my vicinity while constantly picking out new spots I can put the airplane down in quickly, if needed.

I have a bead on the airport and my eyes keep tracking back to the tower hoping for a light gun signal to suddenly appear in-between scanning and avoiding other airplanes.

5 miles out... nothing.

3 miles out... an unmistakeable vibrant, steady green light nails me right in the face from the tower.

BOOM, cleared to land I proclaim to myself.

As I turn downwind, I look down at the airport to see a few fire trucks and several other emergency vehicles lining the runway with their lights on. There's something very comforting about other people coming to help you when you may really need it. It gives you mass amounts of hope in humanity when one person is willing to risk their own life to help you, even if that means endangering their own life.

I keep my pattern to land: high, tight and fast. I have two miles of runway available and just need to get on the ground as quickly and as safely as possible. Norms go out the window (along with the smoke) in an emergency. In the event that my dashboard suddenly turns into a fireball, I just need to be able to get the plane on the ground as quickly as possible.

I turn final, barreling towards the runway much higher and must faster than normal. I get a few feet above the runway, reduce power to idle and start bleeding off airspeed before touching down. I coast down the runway, staying a few feet above as my airspeed trickles down further and further. Halfway down the runway my stall horn briefly blares then the wheels gently kiss the asphalt as my feet quickly dance back and forth on the rudders to stay on the centerline of the runway. Out my window in my peripheral vision I see the flashing lights wiz by as I coast past the emergency vehicles that are holding short of the runway I'm on.

I take the Alpha 3 high speed exit off the runway, get clear of the runway, stop, breath a sigh of relief, pull out my checklist to do the after landing checklist then realize that all of my avionics are off so there's literally nothing to do there. I wedge the checklist back between the dash and the windscreen.

I look up at the tower and the solid green spotlight of light that's directed right at me changes to a flashing green light... cleared to taxi.

I taxi back to the ramp, shut down the airplane, open up the door, get out, look up at the bright blue sky, stretch my hands, stand up on my tippy toes, roll my neck out and let out a big yawn followed by a big smile before I realize that the back of my shirt is soaked with sweat.