This is the story of owning and operating a 1993 Beech Bonanza A36 in the UK and some of its adventures and flights. I have owned this plane for over six years now.
I flew the A36 Bonanza to Newquay yesterday to drop off my wife climbing to flight level 100 on both the outward and return journey. The Bonanza flew beautifully and today I decided that while my wife was away I would visit some friends in Milton Keynes. I loaded up the plane, strapped in the kids and filled up with fuel and was ready to taxi to the hold when I noticed that the attitude indicator was toppled to the side. I had never seen this in four years of flying the A36.
I called ATC and notified them of the problem and taxied back to Hangar 3 at Blackpool and sat and fiddled with everything I could think of including switching on the standby gyro and everything came back on.
I shot down the plane and Scott from Hangar 3 had called G-FOZZ's engineer who had already diagnosed a vacuum pump failiure which I believe is fairly common. All I can say is I am very glad that didnt happen in hard IMC to me. I am also glad to have expereinced the failure so I can put it and the symptoms down to experience.
The only problem now is how I get Mrs Forrest back from Newquay on Monday! Thankfully another helpful plane owner has agreed to take me to collect her in his Mirage so that will be a treat.
