Another contribution to the "this too could happen to you, if you are dumb
enough"
genre. Should be anon but I am old enough and ugly enough to have lost my
sensitivity on such matters!
On my recent trip across Europe I was approaching the Czech border,
looking
at the scenery which was highish hills covered with wall to wall forest
and thinking that this was a bit of country I would think twice about gliding
over. It occurred to me that I could do with a pee so that I could face the
challenge
of Czech ATC in a more relaxed state, so went ahead. The bottle lives
in the cubbyhole under the pilot's left thigh support and I lifted my left leg
up in the air to put the bottle back. Having settled back in my now relaxed
state
I looked at the panel to find that GPS, Radio, transponder, Flydat, Navaid
etc were all dead. It didn't take too long to realise that I was clean out of
electricity and to recall that the engine (914)was therefore running on the
contents of its carburetors, and that in very short time I would be gliding!
Fortunately
it did not take an Einstein to discover that my left trouser leg had
flipped the master and alternator toggle switches down in the previous
manoeuvres
and to restore them before we got to the gliding state. Happy flying,
David Joyce
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