|
After breakfast with Tina and Pedro at Villa
Emma, Tina drove us to see Cristina and Carlos’ apartment nearby in San
Juan. The Pastor family owns altogether 3 apartments in the same
building.
It was still raining as we left Villa Emma, but it cleared up as we
approached Alicante airport, so we could load the plane up in the dry.
The handling of general aviation flights is efficient and friendly in
Alicante and, as everywhere in Spain, the landing and parking fees are
very reasonable.
The alternator worked fine after starting the engine. We had an
uneventful departure and we were soon in the sunshine at FL110 and
cleared direct to the Al Hoceima beacon in northern Morocco. So soon we
would be in Africa! Or so we thought…
About 20 NM before Almeria, we were asked to contact Almeria approach.
Almost exactly at the same time, the 'Low Voltage' warning light lit up
again, and there was no charging current from the alternator. Shit! The
alternator had failed again. We informed Almeria about our problem,
switched off all unnecessary equipment, and asked for an immediate
diversion to Almeria. We were soon cleared down to 5000 feet, cleared
for the approach and cleared to land in case we lost communications.
We were on the ground with all loads switched off less than 10 minutes
after we first observed the low voltage light. So hopefully we would
have enough juice left in the battery to start again.
Soon the cowling was off, and the ohm-meter quickly confirmed that the
alternator rotor circuit was open circuit while the normal resistance of
the rotor circuit is about 8 ohms. So there was definitely a bad contact
inside the alternator. Soon the carbon brush holder was removed, and the
ohm-meter revealed that there was no contact between one of the carbon
brushes and the external terminal. I soon located the problem to be a
missing contact between a rivet which makes contact with the brush on
the inside and with a wire soldered to a washer on the outside. The
rivet and the washer were rather loose, so the real source of the
problem was finally located.
By hammering on the rivet and also turning the washer about 30 degrees,
I managed to make the washer less loose, thus establishing a good
contact. After putting it all together a normal rotor resistance of 7 to
9 ohms was measured and after 2:20 hours on the ground we were in the
air again with a new flight plan for Ouarzazate, Morocco.
Apart from a few small cumulus clouds over the Rif mountains in the
north of Morocco, we had beautiful clear weather the whole way. After
the waypoint ERLAM, we cancelled IFR to fly the recommended VFR routing
south from there to Ouarzazate. We saw some beautiful small Berber
villages near the pass we used to cross the high Atlas mountains. The
air was very clear and we had beautiful views of the mountains as we
were only 2 hours before sunset. The temperature in Ouarzazate was 35
degrees (but very dry: dewpoint - 10!) when we landed shortly before 5
pm local time.
The entry formalities went smoothly and everybody was very friendly at
the airport.
|
Irrigated fields in central Morocco
|
