I had an electrical fire in the clouds about 10 miles away from the airport I took off from. I probably had 140 hours total time... if that. Smoke was coming out of dash pretty good. I killed the battery master and the avionics master quickly and assessed the situation. No more smoke! So, I turned everything everything off, radio's, transponder, etc. because I was going to try and turn things back on one at a time and hopefully have some form of navaid work. No luck... I turned the battery master back on and the smoke started again. There was no VFR overly close, and I knew the area where I was fairly well, so I chopped the power, descended... I gave myself an altitude I knew would be at least 400 AGL, and if I didn't break out by then, I was going to try something different... I didn't really know what, but I thought I could figure that out later. I broke out about 700 AGL, I knew exactly where I was and did some good ol' fashioned scud running. I made it back to the airport without a problem, gave flight service a call from the FBO to inform them of my situation, and all was good! I hadn't been in contact with ATC yet (I took off with a clearance void time), so I didn't have any explaining to do to them. Now I always carry a cell phone when flying... I figure calling ATC would be a good thing to do if in that situation again. Oh well, live and learn.
