Today, I was going to fly down to Italy. The weather was supposedly great for an Alps crossing. We even had the blessing from the president of the aeroclub at Calcinate del Pesce to land there – all seemed so good.
It started going wrong when the drive to the airport took 2 1/2 hours instead of 1 1/4 as usual. I was shocked – people are supposed to be on summer holidays and not blocking motorways on Friday early afternoon. That and some other delays ate away the buffer for the trip to reach the destination well before sunset.
We ended up taking off from EDDL quite late, still in a position to reach the destination within day time but pretty close to sunset. I had three passengers – one a four-year old child – the latter being a premiere for me. The girl was irritating initially, with her screaming voice on the intercom and no sense of when to be quite, obviously. I ended up isolating the pax row during large parts of the trip initially. Pretty soon after take-off, she fell asleep, though.
Unfortunately, I observed multiple alternator failures. The first time (the Piper Archer’s “alternator inop” lighting up and the ampere meter reading zero) I switched the alternator off and on again to reset it and that helped. The second time again… and then again. This became increasingly frequent.
I learned today that it is hard to find the right words explaining your PAX while airborne that there is something wrong with the plane – at the same time stressing that it is important to act rather than just carry on, while also reassuring that nothing bad has happened (yet). Everyone stayed calm, though, so I guess I got the tone right. We discussed together if we carry on until the south of Germany and then see the next morning how to proceed or to turn around.
We ended up turning around and returning to base. If it hadn’t been for the traffic jam and the proximity of sunset, I would have carried on, resetting the alternator every now and then. But I had no good feeling about the possibility of an alternator failure and eventual failure of the electrical system – rendering us “deaf” and “invisible” while crossing the mountains through Switzerland close to nightfall.
We’re all sad that the weekend trip has ended so quickly – but I’m happy even if I’ve erred on the save side.
Certainly the right decision. Alternator failure means no-go. Had it twice in the last 5 years, both regulator failures. I now carry one of these in the flight kit belonging to the airplane.
Patrick wrote:
It started going wrong when the drive to the airport took 2 1/2 hours instead of 1 1/4 as usual. I was shocked –
There is a solution to this: Waze
Living in the center of Paris, my airport drive can take 30 minutes zero traffic and up to 3 times that …
No more with Waze ! It can not only cut the drive time in half but it will very accurately predict your ETA.
I never leave home without it !
No doubt that you made the right choice in canceling your trip, but …
Did you try shutting down different appliances such as the rotating beacon or one of the Nav/Coms to see if it made any difference ?
I would have made the same decision. If you have only one alternator, you can lose a lot of stuff. For me, no flaps, gear down via emergency override, no fuel status, but I do have a handheld radio.
Without the sunset, I would probably have continued. The battery can keep the important systems alive for quite some time and the alternator was not completely dead. The Archer’s flaps don’t have much effect so a non flap landing is a non event. It’s important for passengers to understand that the engine is totally separate and does not need any of the things in the cockpit.
With the sunset being close, I would have done the very same thing.
The flaps on the Archer don’t draw much current anyway.
Patrick: very sorry. That’s GA sometimes. Your fault was taking it too tight with the drive to the airport.
What would it take to install a second alternator if an accessory drive pad is available?
As said, on these spamcans it is usually the voltage regulator that fails.
Right decision, no doubt! Sad feeling anyway, sorry to read that … !
Absolutely right decision. Aircraft don’t repair themselves and small problems usually become big problems after a short while. Being without radio and transponder on an international flight is not funny. And what would you have told your passengers if your electrics would have been completely dead on starting up for your return flight? That they now can drive home by rental car while you wait for spare parts and someone to install them?
