So the plan was to get to Portland, Oregon on this day. We got up on Monday morning, gassed up the plane, and left the area intending on going to Gooding, Idaho for fuel and food.
DAY 2
Monday, August 29th
Mornings in Southwestern Nebraska?
So the plan was to get to Portland, Oregon on this
day. We got up on Monday morning, gassed up the plane, and left the
area intending on going to Gooding, Idaho for fuel and food.
Not long after leaving Nebraska I noticed my system voltage was struggling to hold 12+ volts, which I need in order to keep the battery charged and power the avionics.
I played with it for a while, pulled some breakers in order to disconnect non-critical systems, and for a bit there the voltage appeared to climb back up but ultimately it kept dropping.
I knew I needed to divert, and I wanted to go to a major metropolitan area in case it was something serious and I had to fly home commercially. Since Salt Lake City wasn't too far out of the way and served by major airlines, I headed that way. It didn't hurt that I had already looked into flying there and had familiarized myself with a few local airports. I had a plan and while I wasn't seriously worried, any time you have mechanical hiccups in mountainous terrain there's a reason to be concerned.
South Valley Regional is an uncontrolled field on the south side of town and we headed there. After landing and taxiing up to the FBO office I went in to ask about an A&P on site. I was given a number, made a call to the local mechanic.
At this point, I was stressed AF.
I got in touch with the local A&P mechanic immediately. After a short call and diagnosing over the phone, he told me he was pretty sure it was my alternator, and to my surprise he would come over in the next 5 minutes. He showed up and we all quicky worked together to pull off the cowls and get to work. He immediately saw a broken jumper cable and went back to his shop to cut a new one.
In about an hour total, we got 201SR up in the air, and turned Northwest over the Great Salt Lake to make our way up to Portland.
Heading North over the Great Salt Lake! I know I look
low here but I'm about 2,500 feet above the water.
We stopped again briefly for fuel in Gooding, Idaho.
We then continued on to Portland and parked at the Troutdale Airport, KTTD. The weather and scenery was pretty, though a bit bumpy from mountain wave turbulence.
We got a great view of Mt. Hood as we passed by on our
descent into Portland Troutdale Airport, KTTD:
This was pretty epic to see in person.
Tyler and his wife Nicole grabbed us from the airport
and we all went out for food and a chance to catch up.
Because. Motel 6.
DAY 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9