I flew the deb to knoxville, tennessee on monday to visit relatives. That flight was uneventful-2miles visibility in fog for the first 1/3 of the trip-and the dodging of developing thunderstorms and in the clouds the last hour arriving to knoxville on monday.I was going to leave tomorrow (sat) for the return trip as the thunderstorms/rain pretty much were predicted for all day in knoxville today. As I was floating in my relatives swimming pool at about 3pm I noticed that things suddenly looked pretty good. I ran in, got a briefing, and realized I had about a two hour window to leave-and that saturday was shaping up to be not that good. Got my daughter, got a ride to the airport and we were off at 4:40 this afternoon. We were cleared to 8000 ft.-right when I got to altitude , started leveling off and was told to contact Atlanta center and entered the towering cumlulus that were developing into thunderstorms; when I pulled the prop back nothing happened- then suddenly the rpm raced to 3400 and a peak of 3700 rpm- prop overspeed! I immediately pulled the throttle to zero, checked the oil pressure which was good and informed atlanta that I had a problem. I switched the autopilot on to give me some room to work on the problem-next thing I know I am going up and down 300 ft. in gyrations-the altimeter was flickering +- 300 ft. and I was in solid ifr. To make the story short-got the prop under control-turns out there was moisture in the static system causing the altimeter/vsi to skip a couple hundred ft. here and there-and causing the autopilot to go haywire. End result-got things under control (stopped using the autopilot and got the prop to cruise ok-entered vfr in 30 minutes for the rest of the trip)and got back to my home of Flint in 3 1/2 hours, avoided the thunderstorms that turned real bad behind me, and got everything working other than an occasional sputter of the altimeter/vsi which meant hand flying the whole way. Good thing the plane goes in for the annual next week-lol-after a year of perfectly running funny it chose the moment I entered solid ifr to give up on three items at the same time! The old aviation story that it is a combination of happenings-not one single that cause the troubles. Whew!!!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

I'm certainly glad everything worked out!!!L.Adamson

Geof, Just reading your story gave me the chills :-boom. Takes a cool customer not to panic. In the longer version, did you have time to feel any fear?

GeofaGlad to hear everthings ok. I too had a bad experience similar to yours. I left KSEA to Friday Harbor and the left engine quit.The adrenalin kicked in immediately as I am sure yours did too.I hit the pause button and went down the the kitchen and had a bowl of cereal. That gave me enough time to read the manual.Boy, close one.It's nice to be able to relate isnt itRegardsBobG

A little-but I had lots of options-and I think having other experiences like this helps you to go through it a step at a time.The thing that got me was all of these happening at the same time when least expected-but thats why we train-and the flight sim helps a lot!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

Forgot to bring the bowl of cereal-will remember next time. :-lolYes-nice to be sipping a brew relating this now!http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

Thx Larry.http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

It's another one under the belt. I remember my Dad with his homebuilt smith mini-plane. He broke an oil line over Missouri. Oil everywhere.He knew he needed to set her down quick. The only place he could find was a golf course. Made the news of course. He still talks about it and that happened in the late 60'sBobG

Wow glad you made it back ok!Sounds like you had it well under control.Steely-eyed missle man :)Good to have ya back

Scary story Geof! Usually when you read those kind of reports in certain flying magazines the outcome is a not so pleasant one. One thing seems to stand out, you never seemed to got disoriented even though you were flying solid IFR!! Great job and I'm guessing that a lot of training and experience were your copilot.I hope your daughter kept cool during the whole thing?!Glad to hear you made it back home safely, next time please make sure to tell us a more uneventfull flight ;-)Cheers,Pete http://home.neo.rr.com/zaehringer/pipersignature.jpgPIII600,512MB,Win98SE,DirectX8.1,Geforce32DDR(Det.22.80),SBlive(4.06.703)

My daughter is a newly rated pilot from her aviation college so she was a big help! :-)http://members.telocity.com/~geof43/geofanim2.gif

Hi Geof,I am happy you handled that one. Sounds like you did everything right. We all, I think have had sticky situations while flying at one time or another, so I can appreciate a little of what you went through. I have never had any problems while IFR, because I am not rated IFR yet, so I don't go there. :-)Maybe in the Fall, I may begin the training. We'll see how the money goes.Regards and fly safe,Joe http://home.attbi.com/~jranos/mysig.jpg http://avsim.com/hangar/air/bfu/logo70.gif

A trip like that one to Knoxville, how much do you estimate the cost was in fuel, parking fees, etc. etc.?Just curious.Shez

Good to hear things worked out ok for ya Geof!!Don't know how Goef does it but here's a good site for that kind of info: www.airnav.com:-outtahttp://publish.hometown.aol.com/p3superb/images/675-2n.jpg

I'm glad things worked out okay Geof. I am fortunate that I haven't had any serious problems yet. Of course, I've only been flying for a little over 9 months. All that training and experience you've gained over the years really did pay off. I've decided to start my instrument training as the Summer weather in Florida doesn't allow for much VFR x-countries (lots of low level clouds and afternoon rains). Sunshine State my butt! Hope the annual isn't too bad this year.