G-ASYP Stories - Bruntingthorpe

During early 1996 (probably February/March) Mark was doing his Navigation Flight Test with Andy when half way along the second leg all of the red lights came on and a not insubstantial amount of smoke appeared from the instrument panel area. Although the smoke soon dispersed, the radios had stopped working and the fuel gauges now suspiciously read full - 90 minutes into the flight.

An expeditious diversion to Bruntingthorpe was executed and the aircraft landed without delay. For what looked like a deserted airfield from the air turned out to be a hive of activity. We were made most welcome by those working at the aircraft museum and it was soon established that the voltage regulator had died, cooking the electrics. We decided to leave it for an hour or so in case it decided to burst into flames.

In the mean time we did the paperwork, phoned home and had a guided tour of the museum, which included a flight deck visit to the Vulcan B2, G-VULC.

The flight home was strictly without electrics and we had to get the engine hand-swung to start it.

Brinkley Light Aircraft Services soon fixed the damage, which included fitting two new fuel gauges.

Last updated: 07-Oct-2005 09:06:44