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Do you carry the GPU cable on board?

Trying to bring the weight down I realized this heavy cable lives in the back of the plane for years. Initially I did bring it as my theory was when stranded in a remote place it might help. But now after never using it for very long I think maybe I should unload this thing. Any airport GPU will have its own cable and if I have to buy two 12V batteries at some remote place fuel station I can probably also buy automotive jumper cables, unscrew the cover and wire it to the battery directly. What are other pilots doing? Do you carry the GPU cable on board?

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Mine lives in my hangar for ground checks. Never used it or a GPU when away in 20 years of flying piston.

For turbine airplanes and helos we regularly use them at most places I have worked, but those are ops regularly based at a location where we have our own or a contracted GPU, so again never carried onboard.

Antonio
LESB, Spain

Do you carry the GPU cable on board?

We did so in the past when flying the Piper, because of the unusual plug. With the standard plug of the Bonanza we stopped to do so.

EDDS , Germany

Sebastian_G wrote:

Do you carry the GPU cable on board?

Never. We keep them in the hangar with a battery cart.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden

I once had a hard starting piston on a remote Bahamas island and got it going with the last bit of battery. So that cable felt very good to have back then. But that was more a problem of this engine back then. So I will bring that cable to the hangar and have another few kilos payload :-)

www.ing-golze.de
EDAZ

Until I read your initial post, I’ve never been thinking about the possibility to strand somewhere where a GPU is available but they don’t have the matching cable for it. Therefore I wouldn’t have thought of carrying a GPU cable with me.

But as most things in aviation I guess that is heavily depending on the “mission”: I can not remember when it has been the last time that I landed at an airfield without at least a local flying club. Therefore that “buying 2 automotive batteries” scenario is quite a bit outside of my personal frame of experience. People who more frequently go to more remote places obviously need to prepare differently.

Germany

Yes I do..I have a 14V system so more easy to find a suitable external power source

EBST

The only time I had a flat battery I hand propped the plane and continued on my way. Nowadays with a three bladed wood prop that’s not a safe option but jumper cables are usually available. I’ve never seen an owner use the ground power plug in light aircraft, and never considered carrying a cable to use it. That’s more of an maintenance shop thing IME.

I don’t carry the cable, but the TB20 has the standard 3-pin connector – here.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The 28vdc cable I have was recovered from a military GPU that was powered by a six cylinder Ford petrol engine, when the GPU was working it would spin over a Barron engine at incredible speed and make light work of starting a RR dart.

To take the so much current the cable is huge and I guess that carrying it in my aircraft would result in a 100 mile reduction in range.

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