Hi there,on a sunny Sunday Florida morning back in December I had my first real live emergency. This was my final flight before my PPL checkride, so I had to go with another CFI, someone I knew but never flew with. It's like a checkride before a checkride.Departure was uneventful and we flew from Sanford, FL (KSFB) out to the west to do some typical private training (slow flight, stalls etc.) over Lake Apopka. We decided to go up to 4,500 feet and start with slow flight.Just over the Northwest shore at 4,500, Pre-maneuver checklist complete (that

Hi Pete-glad you had a happy outcome. Good experience I am sure in retrospect. What was the problem with the engine?For some reason I have had a fair share including vacuum failure in imc, alternator failure, landing gear failure (down thankfully),prop overspeed, rough engine, broken muffler (sounded like the engine was coming apart).The strangest I had last summer coming back from ktys (knoxville) to kfnt (Flint, Mi.). Takeoff and climbout were uneventful, but when leveling off at 8000 ft. in imc-right over the somewhat hostile mtns. north of knoxville I had a triple failure! I usually level out, reduce my power/prop settings to cruise settings, lean, then turn on the autopilot do some household chores.Everything was normal until engaging the autopilot-the first thing that happened is the prop oversped-went up to 3500 rmp or so. At the same time-my altimeter started jumping +-500 ft. along with the vsi, and my autopilot started making huge gyrations of pitch up and down-getting bigger and more violent. I disengaged the autopilot, pulled the power all the way back, income averaged on the altitude, and told Atlanta center I had a problem and needed a regular altitude readout from them. (My alt. static source did nothing). I then switched on my garmin handheld gps to altitude readout, knowing that it is usually reads within 200ft. or so of accurate. Using the average of my twitching altimeter and the gps I seemed to maintain altitude fairly close verified by center. I immediately worked on the prop, gently adding power and reducing back and forth-at a certain point I was able to get it close to cruise settings without it overspeeding-I was also able to maintain altitude nursing it in and out until it finally "caught". My choice was to return to knoxville-now about 35 minutes back and with about a 1000 ft. ceiling or continue northeast to lousville where it was vfr all the way back to Michigan. I decided to continue ahead-the engine/prop was now running fine, the mountains were getting lower,and between the gps, alt. readout from center I was mainting my altitude. After I reached louisville and got in the clear-like murphy's law my altimeter settled down-but every 10 minutes or so it would jump briefly +-500 ft and then settle back down to read correctly. I flew all the way home vfr.The static problem was some water that got in the system during some unusually heavy rain/high humidity while my plane was on the ramp for a week in knoxville. It took two flushings and two flights to get that to settle down. The prop overspeed was more elusive-my mechanic thought he had fixed it-then my 3rd flight later on the way to Oshkosh I got the prop overspeed again and had to turn back. (A real drag-a 1 1/2 hr. flight-I was halfway there-ended up driving which takes 9 hours!). Turned out to be a tiny crack in a ring that was real hard to detect, and also was causing the sporadic problem.The one thing I have learned is to always prioritize and take things one step at a time-and yes practicing the unexpected on the sim helps! :-)http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

I'm glad that your incidents ended happily :) I'm not a real pilot (yet), but I've seen the Altimeter jumping up and down in MSFS! It turned out to be a "Real Weather" bug! :-lolhttp://album.atomic-systems.com/showPic.ph.../AAV_banner.jpghttp://www.aavirtual.com :)

Excellent reading. Thanks guys.

The only emergency I had happened when I was a student pilot, shortly after my first solo. Not much of an emergency, but memorable because I was so "new." Enroute between KMSN and KRFD, I lost my radio transmitter. Rockford approach and tower had me use IDENT to acknowledge clearances. Departed NORDO using light signals (never thought I'd have to do that!) and used the same procedure with Madison ATC.Unfortunately, I don't think there's any way to duplicate this in FS9. Would be interesting to be able to use light signals sometime, though, especially when flying some of the oldies.

Excellent that the outcome was so good! I've had a few incidences of the "flickering altimeter", thankfully in VFR, and not so severe.

Is there any way to set FS9 to throw random failures? IIRC, you can only set it to fail by selecting the various systems and a timeframe for it to fail. Would be more interesting to have it fail unexpectedly...Nate

If you have a friend try connecting with the "instructor module".The instructor can cause random failures, and weather changes at the drop of a hat. Kind of cool-I did it with a friend and had him going from extreme vfr to sudden dense fog and a ai failure. The "instructor" can monitor the flight on his page and you can communicate through a chat window.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

I replicate real life accidents with MSFS, according to NTSB files. Usually involves mountainous areas which I recreated in MSFS with or without additional mesh scenery. It's just a reminder, of what I DON'T want to do in real life. It's also the reason I push moving map GPS's when in mountain country, for instant situational awareness when required at a moments notice.L.Adamson

Nothing as exciting as these stories for me, thankfully. Years ago I bought an ultralight (Vector 600) and a friend of mine had a Cessna 150 and he said he would teach me to fly for half interest in the ultralight. I bought the thing used and it only cost $800USD in '86. Man, was I young and stupid.......lol Anyhow, we were practicing stalls when we both smelled the unmistakable stench of an electrical fire. We immediatly killed the avionics and made a bee-line back to the airport. I don't remember the exact details but was later told something in the radio had shorted out. I remember that distinct feeling though the moment I realized something wasn't right. Time stands still for a moment. Later the next year I would be part of an Emergency Reclamation Crew and take part in piecing back together a T-2 Buckeye that crashed after my Division Officer at VT-10 decided to try some unauthorized "fun" during ACM training. I carried his blood and JP-4 soaked flightsuit back to the van along with his crushed helmet. I was standing there next to his body when the Doc handed me his gear and told me to take it to the van for the corpman. I was 22 then, I still remember in vivid detail the sights, sounds and smell of those days in an Alabama soy bean field like they were yesterday. The death of LTJG Thompson taught me a valuable lesson though, aviation can be very unforgiving, especially when you break the rules.

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I have tried several times to land a small aircraft in FS after complete engine failure but to no avail. I can glide and keep the aircraft under control until I get to the alternate airport but my speed gets up too high on landing and I crash. Please describe the proper technique. thanks,mark.

Hi Pete (ConnectionXXX),Flew over Area C last night to Leesburg for some night landings. I am flying out of KORL at Air Orlando. I'll be listening on the radio for ya!Glad you and instructor made a safe landing.W. Sieffert

A good question and I believe you would be right about that.The want of the atc readout was that the altimeter was fluctuating a pretty consistent + -500 higher/lower-so I figured my real altitude was in "the middle". My handheld gps was also giving me a pretty firm altitude that corresponded with the average the altimeter showed. I just wanted a third set of eyes to let me know the approximate "average" that they were getting on their end. I knew I had a couple thousand ft. to play with before coliding with terrain, but if for instance atc started getting a terrain warning, or a readout that vastly differed from my "average" or gps readout I would have immediately begun an unspecified climb. http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

>Hi Geof, A question