Propeller governor failure during flight
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Hey all! This is not a bug report or anything. More like seeking knowledge and guidance!
Was cruising fine at 5000ft. Power set to about 1700ft-lb, prop rpm at around 1700, and IAS at around 160.
The first thing I saw was my speed dropped dramatically. First couple of seconds I thought it was some kind of really violent headwind but then it continued to drop all the way through 100kts, 80kts and then just above stall speed. At the same time I started losing altitude. First thing I did was turn off AP and try to gain speed by losing some altitude but that didn't work.
Anyway, I was almost 40NM away from the nearest airport so I continued flying (no AP) and made it to the airport and landed ok, but I had lost so much altitude that I was flying over a populated area at around 700ft. Strangely, except at the very end my speed never went below stall speed but sometimes I would gain airspeed (if I pulled the nose up I would suddenly start gaining speed again...wth!) all the way up to about 110kts and after a few minutes it would drop again.
So. Checking the tablet I saw that the governor had a failure. Oil pressure was fine. But I couldn't control the propeller RPM. It read 1700 the whole time except when I reduced power to land.
What could've caused this? Also, what's the procedure for this? I paused, checked the manual for emergency checklist when governor fails and there's nothing. Though I managed to land safely, don't know if what I did was correct or not.
So sorry for my wall of text, but any insight would be very welcome. As I said, I want to try to understand all the things that happened so if it happens again I can handle it better.
Thanks!