Generator failure

[ahmad]

Flying with a buddy of mine in his C182 last night. 4 miles out before we enter the downwind poof everything goes black. Pitch black inside the cockpit. He is freaking out a bit. Ok just fly the damn plane. There is a reason why we practice no flap landings and do all those things before we get that license. Someone else had just landed before us so the rwy lights were on. His night landings have not been too good so I coach him in the downwind, base, and final. He greases it this time and says "hmmm go figure I land better in the dark". lol
Well, maybe you need to land blind from now on. At least now we have a cool story to tell our grandkids when we are old. Wait, you are 75. You are old.

 

[Gary Ward]

Had that happen almost 500 hrs ago right at dusk. Landed with just a little power left and I think my flaps worked?

Reason I mention 500 hrs is because now I have to have my alt inspected soon so not to have that happen again.

2 weeks ago I flew a IPC with my CFII and he pulled my power and I did a 180 power off landing with no flaps. It was uneventful and I landed pretty smooth. I have done plenty of 10 and 20 flap landings practicing but not much zero flap practice. Have to do more of them.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Cool story AND a learning opportunity. Going dark shouldn’t have been a surprise.

 

[Dan Thomas]

Reason I mention 500 hrs is because now I have to have my alt inspected soon so not to have that happen again.

That there. It's right in the service manual's inspection checklists:


The "7" refers to the 500-hour line in the notes at the end of the checksheets. Generator brush inspections are a 200-hour item, IIRC. But how many are getting ANY inspections? Too many stories on POA of alternator and generator failures. Stuff is being run to failure, a silly way to operate an airplane. This isn't a boat or car; it can kill you dead a lot easier.

Now, the OP mentioned a sudden and complete loss of electrical power. That implies a failure between the battery and bus, so the generator might not be involved. Or the generator (or its fuse or breaker) might have failed and they didn't notice the discharge on the ammeter, and the system voltage soon fell low enough that the master contactor opened.

 

[mandm]

My landing light fuse popped on landing at night and it was pitch dark. I did try to reset it a few times then said oh well here this goes. The ground came faster than expected but nothing more than a grass field landing.

Now try landing at night when your airport lights are inop. That might take a few tries even with a landing light.

 

[dbahn]

On my first solo cross country flight as a student pilot then last legible transmission I heard was that I was number 5 to land on runway xxx, then they didn't respond to any of my transmissions and I heard a strange whine from the radio before it went dead. I didn't see any of the 5 planes I was following. The procedure at that time for a loss of communication (radio and transponder) was to fly triangles with one minute legs and wait for light signals for clearance to land. I flew a bunch of triangles in the Delta airspace but eventually got nervous staring at empty fuel guages and never did get a light signal. By then I wasn't comfortable flying away to a non-towered field, so I just entered the pattern and landed (realizing a little late that the flaps wouldn't work either). I had to call the tower, but there was no deviation filed. Apparently the AIM hadn't been updated to reflect the fact that the procedure was basically obsolete, and I found out later that someone had proven that by flying those triangles and throwing aluminum chaff out the window and was still never detected.

 

[Gary Ward]

The runway lights are always on at our airport although on a low setting so Think you would ok without pilot controlled lighting? I think that is how I landed because of course I didn't notice a problem until my radios went out...now we do have power outages sometimes at the airport. I never looked at the runways lights during those times.

 

[aftCG]

That there. It's right in the service manual's inspection checklists:

View attachment 128165
The "7" refers to the 500-hour line in the notes at the end of the checksheets. Generator brush inspections are a 200-hour item, IIRC. But how many are getting ANY inspections? Too many stories on POA of alternator and generator failures. Stuff is being run to failure, a silly way to operate an airplane. This isn't a boat or car; it can kill you dead a lot easier.

Now, the OP mentioned a sudden and complete loss of electrical power. That implies a failure between the battery and bus, so the generator might not be involved. Or the generator (or its fuse or breaker) might have failed and they didn't notice the discharge on the ammeter, and the system voltage soon fell low enough that the master contactor opened.

I agree, that doesn't sound like a generator failure. Or like you said, it failed much earlier in the flight.

 

[dbahn]

I agree, that doesn't sound like a generator failure. Or like you said, it failed much earlier in the flight.

I've had quite a few alternator failures, some scarier than others, but knowing its failure early is key. My closest call came shortly after takeoff from Portland, Maine, on an IFR flight into night IMC. Warning light came on, I immediately told tower I was returning to the airport and by the time I was off the runway and ready to taxi, the radios were completely dead. "Most" of the other failures were more or less ho-hum in VMC. The availability of portable GPS navigation devices has made alternator failures a bit less of a practical concern.