Coby and I took of at about 1 pm for Mt. Comfort (MQJ) and landed over there uneventfully. We stopped inside to get a microphone windscreen for the borrowed headsets. They always whistled and were pretty annoying because you could hear the passengers breathing. We said our good byes and headed back out to the plane.
I sat down in the plane and started my checklist for the next stop, which was going to be Post Air, a small runway on the east side of Indy. Turns out it was closed, so we continued on our course and headed down to Greenwood. The first indication that I knew something was wrong was when I transmitted on COM1. The system had trouble singling out my voice and the transmission didn't sound good. I couldn't hear the transmissions from anyone else and I noticed that all the LEDs on COM2 had gone out. This wasn't terrible, because COM2 was pretty old and shotty anyway. The next thing I noticed was the fuel tanks now showed half full. Considering we had flown about 30 minutes, they should not be half full, they should have had about 90% of their fuel in them. So, I was a little worried and immediately turned back to Eagle Creek.
I thought about contacting ATC at Indianapolis International, but I realized my COMs were completely useless now. I stayed below 2000 ft and changed my squawk from 1200 (default for VFR) to 7600 (the code for lost communications). This wasn't necessary since I was staying out of the way of controlled airspace, but because of my proximity to international, I thought it would be a good idea. We did pass right in front of another plane that was towing a banner. Hopefully that guy didn't get mad at us for being too close. He was about 300 ft below us, but I don't like to get that close to other planes.
We were about 10 miles out from Eagle Creek, just passing north of Downtown Indianapolis and I looked at the fuel gauge again. It was down to 8 gallons a side. I did not like to see this, and started thinking about the reasoning for this. Because the fuel gauges are powered (I assume), and the power was running low it seemed to create a false reading of the fuel tanks. However, at the time I was getting nervous that I had a fuel system leak.
I continued onward, hoping that because I had squawked 7600, that any in coming jet traffic would be aware of my condition. I hoped that Indianapolis ATC had communicated that detail with anyone that they were talking to near the Eagle Creek area. There wasn't anyone else in the pattern when we arrived luckily and I entered an extended base for 21. I didn't fly a normal pattern because I was nervous about the fuel gauges. I got the plane on the ground, taxied up to the FBO and told them about my predicament. We checked the fuel in the tanks and it was where it should have been. There was at least 20 gallons in each side. I tinkered with the switches a little bit and called the maintenance officer to see what I should do. He told me to put the plane back in the hanger.
I went to start the airplane and it just whined and turned the propeller about 45 degrees around. Clearly I didn't have electrical power. The line guys at Eagle Creek gave me a jump and I headed back to the hanger. In retrospect, there had been some squawks about the ammeter not showing a positive charge. We all assumed it was because the gauge wasn't calibrated, but it may have been something else. A "low volts" indicator would have been nice, but I don't know when it would have clicked on. I had enough power to start the engine at Mount Comfort, but not enough to use the radios 10 minutes later.
In other news, I did see the Pipersport aircraft at MQJ. It's the LSA that Piper is competing with the Cessna Sky Catcher. It has a pretty crazy looking non-steerable nose wheel, but other than that looks pretty sleek. We'll see what happens between those two (and all the others!).
Anyway, that's enough excitement for me. I'm not going to be flying for a while due to crappy weather in town, but I'll be getting back with John Oot to finish off my check out in the C182s pretty soon.
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