Forecast: Crankiness

I have not flown for two weeks and it will be at least a week, maybe longer, until my next flight. On my last flight, the compass started dripping fluid down onto the glareshield. The compass fluid is kind of flammable and behind the glareshield are wires and radio gear, so let's just say flying like that is not a good idea. Not to mention those nice people at the FAA regard a working compass as a really good thing to have in an airplane.

They are not kidding.

Close to 20 years ago (or 40 Friedman Units), I got back into flying after a prolonged stint of not flying because I had had a job where I was gone a lot. One of the things I wanted to fly was tailwheel airplanes. I lived maybe ten minutes away from an airport, but in order to check out in a tailwheel airplane, I had to drive an hour to another airport. I checked out in the military version of a Piper Cub, a Piper L-4.


The airport had a control tower and Piper Cubs don't have electrical systems, so each flight, I had to check out a hand-held radio.

It took awhile to unlearn the bad habits one accrues from flying Cessnas, but eventually I completed the checkout. I'd to to the airport and either shoot landings or just go fly around, enjoying the summer.

So one summer day I'm out flying along and I hit an updraft or a downdraft (I don't remember which) that really rattled my brains. A couple of seconds later, after my brain unrattled, I did a quick check to make sure the major parts were still attached to the airplane. Then I noticed that the compass was askew.

This is an aircraft compass:

The white line is the "lubber line". On this compass, the compass heading is 210 degrees. The compass headings are indicated on that round thing that's often referred to as the compass card (if you've ever seen an old ship's compass, you'll understand why). The compass card swims in fluid (helps dampen errant swings) and it rides on a pivot point.

The jolt was enough to knock the compass card from its pivot, so the compass was about as useful as an ethicist would be to Dick Cheney.

I was over a rather featureless stretch of marshland and, as one of the fun things about flying a Cub is the "low and slow" routine, I couldn't see a lot. The technical term for that situation is "lost." I knew the airport was some distance to the west and, after getting an idea where the Sun was, I headed off to the west as best I could, which probably meant plus or minus 50 degrees. Or more.

In a few minutes (it seemed a lot longer), I came to the Interstate. I dropped down low enough to read the signs and then I followed the highway until I came to the exit for a town that was about six miles from the airport. I followed the road to the town. I circled the town and tried to get the radio to work, but while I could hear the tower, I couldn't talk to them.

In a move of inspiration or desperation, I tried the ground control frequency and that worked. The controllers in the tower were agreeable to having me on ground control while everyone else was on the tower frequency. I followed the river that meandered from the airport to the town (only flying upstream) until I got back to the airport and finished the flight.

Some days it's better to be lucky than good, and that was one of them.

So my preference is for a working compass.