What's new
Van's Air Force

Don't miss anything! Register now for full access to the definitive RV support community.

Alternator failure flying home from Thanksgiving

Status
Not open for further replies.

Ed_Wischmeyer

Well Known Member
Halfway home from Knoxville, TN to Savannah, GA, in the lower corner of the PFD, two red warning texts appear: VOLTS and AMPS. Uh, oh.

I’d waited for good weather to fly home from Thanksgiving as IFR, the Smokey Mountains, possible icing and light single engine aircraft don’t mix. I had to wait a bit that morning for IFR and low IFR to dissipate on the south side of the Smokies, because I don’t fly single engine IFR over ceilings less than a thousand feet.

I was on flight following and talking to Augusta Approach when the texts appeared. No circuit breakers had popped and there was no electrical smell, so I hypothesized (that sounds better than saying that I guessed) that it was a broken wire or broken fan belt. I recalled the Swissair Flight 111 (MD-11) accident in which all control was lost 15 minutes after an electrical fire started, so I was watching for signs of an electrical fire, in which case I would have landed on the nearest suitable terrain, airport or not.

Fortunately, I had already checked Savannah weather and, although I seldom do this, I had the aera 660 GPS programmed with the flight to Savannah.

I told Approach that I had an electrical problem and was going off the air for a moment. I cycled the master switch but that didn’t help, no real surprise. I then declared a Pan and asked them if they could contact Savannah and get me landing clearance for Runway 10, taxi to parking on Bravo. A minute later, they said that Jacksonville Center was aware of my situation. No thanks, I needed confirmation from the airport, turned everything off, got air data from the G5 and navigation from the aera 660 portable GPS.

I was concerned about the situation but was surprised how much my voice wavered. Later communications had normal voice quality.

I checked the moving map and the only airports in close proximity were private airports. With possibly no flaps and no elevator trim, I wanted to avoid an unfamiliar airport with a short runway. It was only a few weeks ago that I did a no flap landing, just for practice, but that was on an 8,000 foot runway, and I knew that the nose up attitude would block the view of a narrow runway.

I have in the past done a simulated electrical failure, turning off the left side G3X Touch screen. I was comfortable flying with the G5 and aera only, but I knew from experience that setting the engine power properly was at best a guess with no engine instruments.

I’d flown for an hour so the battery probably had a good charge, but it had sat for five days before this flight.

Fuel was not a concern. I took off with more than four hours of gas for a two hour flight, so I wasn’t concerned with running out of gas nor running a tank dry. LESSON: Pay attention to how much time each tank has been used, even when relying on the G3X Touch to tell me to switch tanks after every four gallons burned.

The ADS-B in (receiver) has its own battery, but I had already checked destination weather before the alternator quit – 4,500 broken and I was at 7,500. A very manageable forward stick pressure gave 200 feet per minute down, and I was content with that. I pulled most of the circuit breakers, but when I had the power on momentarily, I gave the electric trim a little blip and was surprised by the sudden response. LESSON: with the flight control system turned off, the trim is no longer airspeed-sensitive and runs at full speed all the time. This didn’t show up when I simulated electrical failure by turning off the left screen.

I tried the cell phone, bluetoothed to the headset but that didn’t work. I turned on power so I could try it through the audio panel, but didn’t have a connection long enough to communicate much when I called the tower, although I did give them a heads up.

As I passed an airport 25 miles out, I called approach control but they were not able to pick me up without transponder or ADS-B out. They asked me to call back when 15 miles out. Did that and asked for Runway 10, taxiway Bravo to parking. Granted, with an admonition to watch for light signals if communications were lost.

Ten miles out, approach handed me over to tower, but tower was unaware of my situation. I told them I was PAN with an alternator failure and a possible imminent radio failure. They cleared me to land, confirmed my parking location (they already knew where I parked), and all was good. Even better, I had full flaps for landing and elevator trim. They also held a departing regional jet, lots longer than normal, so I had no possible wake turbulence to deal with.

Decisions and justifications:
• Since the engine was running well and weather was VFR, I chose to fly 50 minutes home to a familiar airport with long runways rather than land at an unfamiliar airport with the possibility of no flaps and no trim.
• I should have turned on the engine instruments during descent to double check the EGTs.
• The controllers at my home airport know my N# and my competence, reinforcing the decision to fly home.
• I conserved battery power very aggressively, turning off the master switch, which turned off everything that didn’t have a standby battery. Probably more aggressive than I needed to, but better safe…
• I always fly with the aera connected to ship’s power, so I knew it was fully charged.
• Foreflight on the cell phone was another backup.
• After the initial power failure, five pounds of forward stick gave a descent rate of 200 feet / minute, and that worked well.
• Decided to fly home rather than land out and need repairs before I could fly the plane. I’m more confident with getting repairs done at my home field.
• Decided to navigate with the Garmin aera 660 GPS. I flew my newly purchased RV-8 home from California with only it for navigation.
• Fortuitously, got the destination weather well in advance and that reduced workload after the alternator failure.
• Did not take the cowling off and try to debug right after landing, as there was residual stress to deal with.
• The Garmin G3X has room to display the actual voltage next to the word, “VOLT.” I’ll suggest this to them, along with related ideas.
• I should compile a list of current draws for everything on the airplane, and put it on the iPhone along with the other airplane stuff. I had thought some about power failure and practiced some but had not thought things through 100%.
• I knew my airplane well enough to assess risks of landing at various airport if I had no flaps and no elevator trim.
• A standby radio would not have helped that much in this case. The plane has an unused comm antenna, but getting to the cable…

The ASRS report is already submitted, both for whatever safety lessons may be appropriate to pass on and also to CYA.
 
Considering the type of flying you do, maybe add a backup alternator mounted on the vacuum pad; assuming the vacuum system is not used on this highly electrical airplane.

Bevan
 
One more thing

Ed,

For a little more diagnostic/early warning capability, you may also want to connect the Alternator lamp output (active lo) to one of the discrete/sensor inputs on the G3X -- mine is labeled ALT OFF on the CAS.

Glad you made it back safely - please advise on root cause of electrical failure.

Cheers!

B
 

Attachments

  • Screen Shot 2022-11-27 at 3.35.12 PM.png
    Screen Shot 2022-11-27 at 3.35.12 PM.png
    4.4 MB · Views: 224
Good write up

Ed,

Thanks for sharing your alternator failure story with us. Overall I think you did an excellent job analyzing your situation and taking appropriate action. People can always pick apart certain decisions but the end result is what matters. Your decisions resulted in a safe recovery and no additional aircraft damage.

I always appreciate reading how others handle adverse circumstances and their logic behind the decisions they made. It makes me think through specific situations and analyze what I might have done if faced with similar circumstances. People need to share these experiences more often.
 
For a little more diagnostic/early warning capability, you may also want to connect the Alternator lamp output (active lo) to one of the discrete/sensor inputs on the G3X -- mine is labeled ALT OFF on the CAS.

Not sure what an additional warning light would provide -- the G3X Touch already provides that function, and I was surprised how attention-getting that VOLT was...
 
Not sure what an additional warning light would provide -- the G3X Touch already provides that function, and I was surprised how attention-getting that VOLT was...

I wasn't suggesting another light - just another CAS message.

Not sure what your Voltage alarm thresholds are, or what rails you are monitoring. Mine are Battery primary and EFIS backup, and they are set pretty high (13.1V). With a lithium pack, I've noticed that it takes a little while to discharge to the point of generating the VOLTS 1 message on the CAS.

With the alternator's lamp output wired into the G3X allows me to see the fault the instant the alternator drops off line versus waiting for the Voltage alarm threshold to be hit.

Again, great write up - glad you made it ok.
 
Excellent report Ed. I think you covered all your bases. Had this happened to me, I would have been concerned about the engine driven fuel pump failing, but because the chance of that happening also is slim, I too would have pressed on.
 
Excellent report Ed. I think you covered all your bases. Had this happened to me, I would have been concerned about the engine driven fuel pump failing, but because the chance of that happening also is slim, I too would have pressed on.

You jogged my memory… when I was load shedding, I looked at the aux fuel pump and said that I didn’t need it (in cruise) and never revisited that decision. There’s a term for failing to reconsider, and that has contributed to accidents.

Also, I didn’t do the landing checklist.

I’ll claim stress as an alibi. Wish I’d handled things better…
 
Last edited:
First off, you handled it well. No good plan survives contact with the enemy, and you learned a lot from it and will probably modify your planning.

Suggestions....
1) A backup alternator on the vacuum pad.
2) Determine your "load shed" minimum power consumption for continued flight - then during annual inspection use a combination of lights/pitot heat/screens/whatever to come to that same load - and test your ships battery to see how much time it will give you under load-shed conditions. That's a good number to have in the back of your head.

I've had to put my plane down twice with partial engine power - once in beautiful VFR and once in 400' ceilings - it is definitely an attention getter and will make you think. I've only dropped an alternator in flight once, and in that case I just brought the backup online and continued to the destination.
 
Alternator failure is the most probable electrical fault we face, but certainly does not present the most severe outcome if some thought goes into battery selection, power distribution design and periodic maintenance.

I suggest you establish a minimum battery capacity to meet your mission. For me this is 2.5 hours of full IFR flight on only battery power. Once you have set this design goal create the POH emergency procedures to achieve that goal then test to verify you have, and continue to meet that goal.

Some rules I have to support (not inclusive, just examples):
- Never launch after a jump start. You most likely have a degraded battery, and you will absolutely have a battery below full capacity. Replace any abused battery (e.g left the master on).
- Never assume just adding an aux alternator addresses all the electrical faults that can make your panel go dark. Add redundancy to your design. How much depends on your mission goals and risk tolerance.
- If you are depending on back up batteries for avionics or an electrically dependent engine, test them. I found a flat electronic ignition backup battery in an RV (dual ship power dependent electronic ignitions). The only reason this engine did not fail in flight was blind luck that the primary power did not go away.

Carl
 
Nice write-up, thanks !

This my electrical display on the G3X. Any thoughts on adding a master warning (Red alarm) or master caution (Yellow alarm) to a led in plain sight on the panel? (Future RV-10 in progress)
 

Attachments

  • G3X.jpg
    G3X.jpg
    143.6 KB · Views: 148
Any thoughts on adding a master warning (Red alarm) or master caution (Yellow alarm) to a led in plain sight on the panel? (Future RV-10 in progress)
I've been employed by companies in the jet airframe industry and have researched master caution and master warning lights, alerting systems in general, and observed how pilots react to them in simulator training.

Master warning means, "you need to know about this right now and do something about it right now." Master caution means, "You have to know about this right now but you don't have to handle it right now." Not sure that difference is as distinct as it might be.

And it's also interesting that pilots seem to respond to the aural alarm (same for both cases) by pushing both buttons, and then reading text on the CAS (Crew Alerting System, or similar) to see what the problem is.

All of which is to say, I've never seen the point of having warning and caution lights separate when they are treated so similarly.

And on one contemporary business jet that I know a little bit about, there are something like 900 CAS message, the majority of which are not taught and are not in the POH. Hmm.

As for the G3X Touch display that shows the voltage and amps, the engine display, that's standard G3X, although it appears you have two of each.

And if there's an LED display, then there are issues of dimming at night. And the Garmin connectors and strain relief and all that are beyond my desire to mess with them. Plus, all the avionics shops have more business than they can handle, and my requests for 3 of 4 wires added have gone nowhere.

All of which is to say that the G3X Touch screen messages work just fine for me, at least, as I now know by first hand experience.
 
I fly a jet where you only hit the master warning during an engine fire to "silence the bell". System cue switches will illuminate and you bring up that expanded system page to reset the master and begin to handle the issue. We have a QRH, all the situations you can get are in it.

There is a reminder section on the bottom of the main engine display to help act as electronic referee when multiple plates are up spinnimg on sticks.

There are extra details in many issues in the aircraft ops manual, and a consequences cue page can get you down if you can't crack open the books.

I'm biased, as I teach it, but I like the logic.
 
It would be interesting to know what brand and model alternator is installed and what failed in the alternator.

PS: I have had many instrument failures, vacuum pump failures and a few alternator failures while single engine IFR (with no standby alternator or extra battery). All failures were noted quickly and the offending instruments were covered or in the case of alternator failure the ships battery lasted hours because of load shedding and early attention.
 
I had an unplanned landing to an airport many years ago due to an engine problem (dropped an exhaust valve on an O-320). I was able to fly about 15 miles on three cylinders and didn’t get the “knee shakes” until I shut down.

I beat myself up for several days wondering what I could have done better.

Then a friend (an old Air Force pilot) made me feel better by saying there must have been at least five ways to get that airplane on the ground and I found one of them!

So congratulate yourself and learn from the experience.
 
Pleasant phone call and email (below) from the FAA. They’re just doing their follow up. The lady who called is from the maintenance side. I’ll pull the cowling later today and see if there’s something obvious.

The following notification by the Regional Operations Center was received by the ATL FSDO: SAVANNAH, GA (SAV): N7152Y, RV9A, REPORTED ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS AND CONTINUED TO SAV. LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. 11/26/2022 1727Z
In order to close the occurrence, we are requesting the following information:
1. A signed written statement of events from the Pilot in Command (PIC)
2. A copy front and back of the PIC’s airman certificate with current medical
3. A copy of the maintenance record entry returning the aircraft to service
I can be reached by email with any questions.
 
This my electrical display on the G3X. Any thoughts on adding a master warning (Red alarm) or master caution (Yellow alarm) to a led in plain sight on the panel? (Future RV-10 in progress)

There are ground sink connections for both master warning and master caution. Run 12V to an led (12V style, not stock LEDs) or incandescent lamp and then to these pins and you will have annunciation lamps. Best if the 12V source comes from the dimmer buss.

Larry
 
Great write up, great job IMO...lessons learned.

I have and electric dependent IFR bird and decided on a IBBS and isolatable Essential Bus...no backup alternator. The design involved a bunch of load research. I was surprise how little amperage the G3X LRUs pull. The biggest draw was going to be the COM during transmit, I decided to leave this out as I carry a handheld backup. I have the small TCW IBBS (3ah) and it lasts 1-hour with all screens on bright, IAW their CA docs ...that means a healthy 16ah PC680 should last over 5 hours or fuel exhaustion.
 
Last edited:
Pleasant phone call and email (below) from the FAA. They’re just doing their follow up. The lady who called is from the maintenance side. I’ll pull the cowling later today and see if there’s something obvious.

The following notification by the Regional Operations Center was received by the ATL FSDO: SAVANNAH, GA (SAV): N7152Y, RV9A, REPORTED ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS AND CONTINUED TO SAV. LANDED WITHOUT INCIDENT. 11/26/2022 1727Z
In order to close the occurrence, we are requesting the following information:
1. A signed written statement of events from the Pilot in Command (PIC)
2. A copy front and back of the PIC’s airman certificate with current medical
3. A copy of the maintenance record entry returning the aircraft to service
I can be reached by email with any questions.

You should probably also file an ASRS, just to cover all the bases.
 
Great write up, great job IMO...lessons learned.

I have and electric dependent IFR bird and decided on a IBBS and isolatable Essential Bus...no backup alternator. The design involved a bunch of load research. I was surprise how little amperage the G3X LRUs pull. The biggest draw was going to be the COM during transmit, I decided to leave this out as I carry a handheld backup. I have the small TCW IBBS (3ah) and it lasts 1-hour with all screens on bright, IAW their CA docs ...that means a healthy 16ah PC680 should last over 5 hours or fuel exhaustion.

Just a reminder that if IBBS is wired per diagram, if/when the alternator fails, then the primary battery will be feeding the avionics with electron if the pass thru have been wired unless you have a way of isolating/shutting down the pass-thru. The end result of this would be that if you are expecting your main battery is your reserve and to work after the IBBS, that may not be the case.
 
Alternator is a 87 Suzuki Saluki 14824 or 14870 with just over 1,000 hours, installed by the original builders.

There was some electrical issue a few years back, don’t remember what, but the good news is that I already have a spare alternator.

The alternator is still on the airplane and no debugging has been done. Scheduled for Wednesday.

Let’s keep the speculation (noise) under control, please.
 
Last edited:
Good Portable GPS

Hi Ed, One of the subtle back stories here is the use of your Garmin Aera 660 "Portable" GPS. I took note that you mentioned it was used previously for an entire cross continent trip, so you trusted it. Once the big screen was dark would you have continued your trip if you did not have that Aera 660 onboard? It's amazing what an affordable "Portable" $800 back up GPS can do for you when that expensive panel is not available. :D
 
Hi Ed, One of the subtle back stories here is the use of your Garmin Aera 660 "Portable" GPS. I took note that you mentioned it was used previously for an entire cross continent trip, so you trusted it. Once the big screen was dark would you have continued your trip if you did not have that Aera 660 onboard? It's amazing what an affordable "Portable" $800 back up GPS can do for you when that expensive panel is not available. :D

On that aera cross country, the backup was the iPhone with ForeFlight, so the aera 660 was not a single point of failure, to abuse the terminology.
 
Ed,

Thanks for sharing your alternator failure story with us. Overall I think you did an excellent job analyzing your situation and taking appropriate action. People can always pick apart certain decisions but the end result is what matters. Your decisions resulted in a safe recovery and no additional aircraft damage.

I always appreciate reading how others handle adverse circumstances and their logic behind the decisions they made. It makes me think through specific situations and analyze what I might have done if faced with similar circumstances. People need to share these experiences more often.

Ed,
All I can say is, after reading all these posts, and echoing some, is nice job. One of my sim instructors from my past (one of the good ones), said that if you have an emergency situation, or one that the safety of flight may be in jeopardy, is in question, and you handle the situation without endangering human life on the ground or in flight, whether your flight or another, and you don’t damage anything on the ground or your airplane, and put the airplane on the ground without damage (at an airport) - you are successful, no matter what procedure you may have followed. Like tanker pilot says - “the outcome is what counts”. After it’s over and you have a chance to internalize it, and I mean you, not everyone else, you may decide that you could possibly have done a couple things differently, but maybe not. Bottom line - you successfully handled the abnormal situation you were confronted with. So you did everything right in this situation.

Thanks for reporting a detailed view of your flight. Many will says I would have done this differently, or maybe you need more backups, but on this abnormal flight it ended the way it should, so nice job.
 
Just a reminder that if IBBS is wired per diagram, if/when the alternator fails, then the primary battery will be feeding the avionics with electron if the pass thru have been wired unless you have a way of isolating/shutting down the pass-thru. The end result of this would be that if you are expecting your main battery is your reserve and to work after the IBBS, that may not be the case.

Thanks...Makes sense and good to know. Mine is wired like the G3X diagram in the TCW manual.

Unless I needed to completely isolate the normal aircraft power (smoke, fire), I don't see a need to isolate the IBBS from the system this way. The IBBS won't provide it's power from it's internal battery until it senses the main voltage <11v, so procedurally I wouldn't do anything (sans smoke, fire). Alternator fails...everything works normally on aircraft battery power...main battery gets to 9v after several hours...IBBS starts supplying power...dies in an hour.
 
Last edited:
Great write up, great job IMO...lessons learned.

I have and electric dependent IFR bird and decided on a IBBS and isolatable Essential Bus...no backup alternator. The design involved a bunch of load research. I was surprise how little amperage the G3X LRUs pull. The biggest draw was going to be the COM during transmit, I decided to leave this out as I carry a handheld backup. I have the small TCW IBBS (3ah) and it lasts 1-hour with all screens on bright, IAW their CA docs ...that means a healthy 16ah PC680 should last over 5 hours or fuel exhaustion.

Thanks...Makes sense and good to know. Mine is wired like the G3X diagram in the TCW manual.

Unless I needed to completely isolate the normal aircraft power (smoke, fire), I don't see a need to isolate the IBBS from the system this way. The IBBS won't provide it's power from it's internal battery until it senses the main voltage <11v, so procedurally I wouldn't do anything (sans smoke, fire). Alternator fails...everything works normally on aircraft battery power...main battery gets to 9v after several hours...IBBS starts supplying power...dies in an hour.

I have come to the same conclusions, including leaving the COM off the IBBS. Once I install the new panel I will have pretty much the same set-up.

What ignition do you have? I have two P-mags.
 
What if this had been J-3?

It's not a crazy thought. The subject RV is carbed, with mags...no electrical requirement, same as the Cub. Plenty of fuel, more than the Cub. Weather broken or better, 1000+ ceiling, Cub weather. Can't get real lost, because Augusta is only 90 NM from Savannah, straight down the Savannah River, past no less than four no-tower runways of 5000 ft or more (BXG, 2J5, JYL, and TBR).

In a Cub, it would not be worth a pan, or a mayday, or even a shrug, because no-alternator is a normal day. So why treat it differently in an RV?

I do not mean to be critical, but rather, merely present a different mindset. Ed got a satisfactory result, but most of the drama in this adventure was self-imposed. The airplane was not going to fall from the sky. There was no need to go to Savannah; that was convenience, or even target fixation. Drop it as a destination, and with it goes the need to negotiate clearances and write reports for the FAA. Life gets simple. Unclutter the mind and just fly the airplane.
 
I have the small TCW IBBS (3ah) and it lasts 1-hour with all screens on bright, IAW their CA docs ...that means a healthy 16ah PC680 should last over 5 hours or fuel exhaustion.

Good heavens, how far do people normally fly after they've had an in-flight electrical equipment failure?

I've known a pilot or two who got themselves into some real trouble by flying too far/too long on battery power only...flying into dusk, or darker, and then not having enough juice to, oh, turn on the PCL to find the field...
 
Good heavens, how far do people normally fly after they've had an in-flight electrical equipment failure?...

I believe there’s too much emphasis put on batteries and backup batteries when designing our electrical systems.. Batteries are simply electrical reservoirs of unknown capacity depending on several factors. Unless the engine is incapable of running, in which case your remaining time in the air is very limited anyway, it is far better to have a backup alternator (unlimited supply of electrons at a reduced rate) of which there are several to choose from.

I’ve designed my electrical system such that I could complete the flight as planned after an alternator failure without breaking a sweat. Fuel remains the limiting factor. YMMV

Bevan
 
Good heavens, how far do people normally fly after they've had an in-flight electrical equipment failure?

I've known a pilot or two who got themselves into some real trouble by flying too far/too long on battery power only...flying into dusk, or darker, and then not having enough juice to, oh, turn on the PCL to find the field...

Isn't the answer always "It depends?"

If I had an alternator fail an hour after departure from the Omaha area, headed for home in the Denver area with ~4.5 hours of gas for a 3 hour flight and good weather, I might do a check on the pmags (if I thought of it), but I would continue. There are enough airports, and not a lot of people or traffic, between Omaha and Denver. You could probably turn off almost everything and have more than 5 hours of battery. Even if all navigation failed, including the iPad, you could follow I-80, or the W on the compass, until the Rockies. I feel like Dan H expressed how I'd approach it. I pretty much had that happen when my field wire came loose in 2012.

Having said that, as a very young low time pilot I did something just like you describe, at night, and running the lights really dim. Hopefully I'll never make that particular mistake again.

Good on the OP for navigating his situation successfully, and as someone posted, it was ultimately a mission completed safely.
 
What if this had been J-3?

It's not a crazy thought. The subject RV is carbed, with mags...no electrical requirement, same as the Cub. Plenty of fuel, more than the Cub. Weather broken or better, 1000+ ceiling, Cub weather. Can't get real lost, because Augusta is only 90 NM from Savannah, straight down the Savannah River, past no less than four no-tower runways of 5000 ft or more (BXG, 2J5, JYL, and TBR).

In a Cub, it would not be worth a pan, or a mayday, or even a shrug, because no-alternator is a normal day. So why treat it differently in an RV?

I do not mean to be critical, but rather, merely present a different mindset. Ed got a satisfactory result, but most of the drama in this adventure was self-imposed. The airplane was not going to fall from the sky. There was no need to go to Savannah; that was convenience, or even target fixation. Drop it as a destination, and with it goes the need to negotiate clearances and write reports for the FAA. Life gets simple. Unclutter the mind and just fly the airplane.

Hmm.

Savannah is home base, I know all the taxiways and frequencies, easy to fly in to, and for me, much less workload than some airport I've never landed at. No clearances to write down, no negotiations (Class C), and not clear that landing elsewhere would have meant no FAA report. After all, it's the maintenance side of the FAA that's interested in the event. And if I had landed at some no tower airport, I'd have to call the FAA and tell them that I was down okay. So for me, Savannah was by far the easiest alternative. If Savannah was my destination and unfamiliar, that would probably have led to a different decision.

I didn't say this in the narrative, but the ceiling was 25,000 feet till 30 miles from Savannah.

And, as mentioned in the narrative, this situation was surprisingly stressful. So I managed stress by going to the most familiar airport, and that also reduced workload.
 
What if this had been J-3?

It's not a crazy thought. The subject RV is carbed, with mags...no electrical requirement, same as the Cub. Plenty of fuel, more than the Cub. Weather broken or better, 1000+ ceiling, Cub weather. Can't get real lost, because Augusta is only 90 NM from Savannah, straight down the Savannah River, past no less than four no-tower runways of 5000 ft or more (BXG, 2J5, JYL, and TBR).

In a Cub, it would not be worth a pan, or a mayday, or even a shrug, because no-alternator is a normal day. So why treat it differently in an RV?

I do not mean to be critical, but rather, merely present a different mindset. Ed got a satisfactory result, but most of the drama in this adventure was self-imposed. The airplane was not going to fall from the sky. There was no need to go to Savannah; that was convenience, or even target fixation. Drop it as a destination, and with it goes the need to negotiate clearances and write reports for the FAA. Life gets simple. Unclutter the mind and just fly the airplane.


Exactly why my comment was,,
Hmmmmmm….
 
Equipment

11 years with the Pitts, compass, chart, airspeed and altimeter. Nothing electric installed. That prepared me for many failures like the battery failure in a Seneca that shut down the entire electrical system. I did have a flashlight or two.
 
Cub vs RV??? The cub lands slower, can be put down in many more places (both on and off of an airport), and is much more comfortable at 500 feet than an RV. Apples and Oranges.

-Marc
 
Cub vs RV??? The cub lands slower, can be put down in many more places (both on and off of an airport), and is much more comfortable at 500 feet than an RV. Apples and Oranges.

-Marc

It's an RV9, not a space shuttle. My RV8 is extremely comfortable at 500 feet. Apples and apples.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top