I flew a pilot proficiency flight yesterday, flying into unfamiliar airports and busy Class B airspace (surrounding the country’s busiest airports), just to challenge myself a little and get comfortable in flying in these areas.

As the accident report often states: “everything was normal and routine until…” I approached the destination airport. On approach I was a little high and hot, trying to lose altitude without gaining too much airspeed. The Cessna P210 is heavy and draggy in landing configuration, so getting down is rarely a problem. I got slow and low, but I was farther down the runway than my usual touchdown point. I touched down about 30% down the runway instead of the normal 10% down, long but not horrendous…

…until I started to put on the brakes and found I had no right brakes.

The Cessna P210 has two independent hydraulic braking systems. The left was working fine, but the right system was dead. With airspeed across the rudder I was able to keep the airplane straight without braking, but as I slowed the rudder had less effectiveness, and I could no longer keep the airplane straight. I wasn’t sure if I could keep the plane from going into the overrun and runway end lights…

…so at the last moment I stomped on the left brakeand turned into the taxiway ant the end of the runway. The plane heeled hard right, and for an instant I thought I might spin around in a ground-loop, but happily I made the turn without flipping over, and safely exited the runway.

Making only left turns and VERY long right turns, I was able to taxi over to the maintenance base, who found a right brake cylinder with no brake fluid. I apparently have a small leak in the rotating joint in the right main landing gear, which allows the brake fluid to flow from the brake pedal reservoirs to the landing gear even when the landing moves up and down. Bummer.

I had actually considered taking the plane back to Carson City with a known braking problem, thinking that I could get it back to my hangar or to my maintenance shop even with no right brakes. I’m glad I decided to get it checked out. It only cost me an hour of shop work, and I know I have brakes again until my next annual inspection in a couple months.

The question to myself is: why did I think it was a good idea to fly my airplane with a know problem? It was late Friday afternoon, but I wasn’t keeping anyone from going home. What was I thinking? I ultimately made the right decision, but why was I even considering any other alternative? I dunno. The bottom line: I made the right decision and got it fixed. Good on’ya, mate. I lived to fly another day, and I have a few more items to add to my pre-takeoff checklist.