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9500 ft up in the air ... half-way between Mt. Isa and Longreach ... at midnight ... is not a good place to have a complete electrical failure, but that is what happened to the six members of the Schipp patrol in August 1996.
Luckily an airplane engine doesn't rely on the battery for the engine to keep on running, and pilots are drilled in all sorts of failures as they practice for their licenses, but the consequences were still worrying. How will we find Longreach, how will we put the wheels down, how will we get the airport lights turned on? were some of the real obvious questions.
The night was as dark as I have ever seen, a sprinkling of stars above and the odd homestead or outcamp light below. No glimmer of moon and no sign of an horizon—the aircraft seemed to hang in space—motionless with an eerie feeling that we could have been alone in the universe.
The decision was weather to continue on to Longreach, turn back to Mt. Isa or divert to Cloncurry or Winton. A study of the Map by torch light showed that Longreach had the flattest terrain, with no hills or mountains near by, so we decided to continue on, via dead reckoning for Longreach. Dead reckoning is where you steer a calculated heading for the time it should take to get there and was widely used by early pioneer pilots.
We would have to fly an accurate heading as we had 300 miles to go and no land marks, towns or villages to give us a position check along the way. Our flight would be over semi desert country, of what Australians term "The outback".
One hour after our electrical failure we turned back on the electrical master switch and found that our battery had recovered a little, we got our radio set on the correct frequency to operate the PAL (Pilot activated Lighting) at Longreach, then off it all went again.
There was nothing more to do than to check the emergency gear extension method so we could put the wheels down when we arrived, and think of what we could do if the runway lights did not go on. We decided we could "buzz the town at 1000ft and manipulate the propeller to make a lot of noise. Surely if we woke half the town up people would call the police? And then, seeing a small plane with no lights on, would realise there was a problem. I calculated that using maximum indurance power settings we would run out of fuel ½ hour before dawn, so waiting for daylight was not an option.
After about an hour of flying on instruments by torch light Steve started to get the "leans" this is a sensation experienced sometimes by instrument pilots. There was no autopilot, to help out—it works off the electricity as well.
Ray said, "Would you like me to have a go?" “Yep! It’s all yours,” was the glad reply. Ray’s practice on his home computer paid off. He did a sterling job for his first "real" night flight, managing the controls for over 15 mins.
We arrived over Longreach at 2 AM and figured out where the airport should be, positioned ourselves to give the PAL system a go—team work was the key, Steve Turns on the master switch, Ray keys the mic. The minimum time we think we can get away with … three pulses … one, two, three and the power fails again … no good it didn't work.
We could always try a landing on the road behind one of the trucks we had seen leaving town at odd intervals—the road has some big straight sections.
“There they are!” shouts Denis from in the back. The lights had come on, they were hidden under the wing!
Down went the wheels, and we didn't waist anytime getting down on the ground I can tell you.
We give thanks to our God who keeps us safe in our going out and coming home.
Remember:
'Don't back out on the outback!'
 Opportunity down under Go to our opportunity down under page.
 Home Page Back to Outback Patrol's Home Page.
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