Ok, sounds like I have some fessing up to do...
I took my mom up for a flight on her birthday and we went to overfly the area we are going to be doing a memorial pass today. I was entering a user waypoint in my hand held GPS and my hand must have accidentally hit the 'cold start' switch. That switch doubles the injector duration and is used for starting in extremely cold temperatures. But it was too much fuel for the engine to keep me aloft (just an occasional sputter). I was only at about 1100 AGL at the time so my emergency procedures only got as far as: turn toward airport, switch fuel tank, aux fuel pump, verify fuel pressure, primary switches turned on... shit, time to find a place to land this thing... call mayday, choose best spot, fly under traffic signal and onto road.
Mom was cool and collected the whole time. We were very lucky to find a gap in traffic, the cars were waiting for the light I flew under. Also really glad to have a plane as nimble as an RV. I don't think I could have done it in a Bonanza. (course a Bonanza doesn't have a 'cold start switch' either)
It was not until after all the commotion on my drive back to OKB that I finally had a few minutes to think about what could have been the cause... then I really felt stupid. If only my emergency procedures went one more step and I would have tried tweaking the mixture I could have saved myself a lot of embarrassment.. But when it is time to fly/land the plane, that is what you have to do.
Sure enough, upon return to the plane I discovered the cold start switch flipped. I checked out everything else, ran fine. Later in the afternoon I flew it home to OKB from Palomar. I am so very grateful that extreme embarrassment is all I suffer. Thanks for all the support from the GA community.
On Sun, Mar 14, 2010 at 4:56 AM, rv6flyer <gary@rvdar.com> wrote:
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