Night adventure to Margate

Marc and Lee flew in from Light Flight Cato Ridge as the sun was about to set and Llewellyn and I in ZDL set off with them for Margate at sunset. It's only a 45 min flight away with a tailwind and we expected to arrive in the dark. I had organised a taxi for 6.45pm and a booking at the fabulous Burlesque restaurant in nearby Ramsgate for dinner. I said before we need to carry spare toothbrushes and a change of undies in the plane for emergencies, but I forgot.

Beautiful sunset with a bit of an inversion and haze as we head along the coastline

Unexpectedly about 15 minutes out of Margate the voltage of the battery dipped and the lights on the aircraft instruments dimmed with a warning message coming up - Low Voltage supply. The usual red glow of the cabin lights went out and the radio and the transponder went on the blink. I carry a back-up manual radio, but without a connection to the headsets it was almost impossible to make or receive a transmission, although there seemed to be enough power in the aircraft to hear Marc calling us, but not enough for us to transmit. I turned off all instruments that we could do without and switched off the light switch. And resorted to cellphone messaging. Marc needed to switch on the runway lights (7 clicks of the radio button) and land and vacate the runway and we would come in after him without lights.. all of which we performed ok.. except that we couldn't see the runway surface so had to feel our way down until the wheels bumped and we were down safely.

 

We contacted Jean from the Airplane Factory, disrupting his Saturday evening, and he, as usual was obliging and helpful. We really just needed assurance that we could fly safely back to Durban in tandem with Marc later. As long as the engine was running there should be no danger of the electrical fault affecting the operation of the engine.

Dinner at Burlesque was fantastic and well worth the flight. Superb presentation, lovely atmosphere and great tasting chicken dish, prawn curry (below) and sole, with yummy calamari starters and superb cheesecake for desert.

The Airplane Factory's incredible after-sales service saw Jean, Director of The Airplane Factory, fly down to Durban on Sunday and tackle the plane's electrical system to trouble-shoot the fault. We had managed at 10pm to find an B&B across the road from the Airport and stay over for the night while SAA flew back to Durban. It took most of the day after Jean had been battered by high winds and turbulence over the Berg getting there and he meticulously went through each power and earth cable checking for integrity. A few connections were tightened, the main battery and the regulator replaced, labelled and taken back for testing and by 4 pm we were ready to try a restart. The engine started immediately and despite worsening weather conditions we each thought we would be able to get hom for the night. The ATC at Virginia indicated the clouds had moved lower to 800 ft and the weather was closing in (with rain expected Monday) so we phoned Pietermaritzburg and they said the clouds were high there. A decision was taken that we would follow Jean to Pietermaritzburg and he would then continue to Johannesburg and we would either land in Pmb and be collected by my kids, or if clear we would fly through to Virginia.

As we got closer to Pmb the clouds were clearing and there was blue sky above although there was still a terrible haze. In the pic Jean is slightly ahead and then zoomed off to the north whilst we continued a north-easterly course for Pietermaritzburg. I was ain cell contact with a team of advisors (what great mates to have.. Marc, Brad, Louis and their connections in the different cities) and with advice that the coast was clearer we decided to head east to the coast short of Pietermaritburg as the clouds were settling on the mountains between Pmb and the coast and we would definitely have been stuck there. My daughter had in the meantime set off by car to collect is in Pmb. Despite some clouds low over the mountains we managed to break through to the coast at Amanzimtoti and from there the coastal clouds were high enough to make it home. Thanks guys for the team effort.

Flying out into the dark moonless night without instrument power

Pre-flight checks on the planes before we set off from Virginia

In the air routing from Virginia to Margate as the sun was setting

Port Shepstone lights by night