Lights out during night flight!!

ipengineer

ipengineer

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ipengineer
Just started my flight training.. Tonight was my fourth lesson. Beautiful night. Weather was nice with wind nine from the SE.

So, we departed 45 minutes or so after sunset, got about 8 miles or so out of class B space and began recapping everything we worked on in our previous lesson; Steep turns.

So for this lesson we start going over what happens when you apply flaps. 10-20-30-40 degrees in a 150! Apparently you can't maintain altitude with 40 degrees of flaps in a 150. He was telling me we shouldn't fly any more than 30 degrees; He just wanted to show me how the attitude changes. Once we get done with that we move back into recapping power-off stalls. First exercise goes well, second great. The third time around as we reduce power and pull back on the stick and reach stall speed the lights flicker and we lose power! Check the master switch.. Everything looks fine. The instructor says we better head back!

As we are working our way back, we continuously check for traffic. Since we have no power obviously we have no lights, GPS or radio. We both had our flashlights with strobe so as we begin our approach we try to make contact with the Tower. No good.. We continue to look for traffic, fly the pattern and make a landing. Never could get the attention of the tower. Luckily we never encountered any traffic and made it down to fly another day.

The biggest thing I think that sticks out to me, and I told the instructor was that if we had that issue happen five minutes earlier when the flaps were down at 40 degrees we would have had a problem! Maybe we would have had enough altitude to make it back.. Maybe not. End of the day a learning experience and a good chance to see what happens when something goes awry.
 
Your instructor is full of it. In order to be certified, an airplane must be able to climb at gross weight with full flaps. Certainly performance will be diminished, but unless its very high or hot, it is possible to climb.

Btw, you checked the master switch, but did you check the circuit breakers? Did you find out what went wrong? Sounds like you overloaded things. Nevertheless, some maintenance is in order.
 
Glad you worked it out. Good experience. Not impressed that the instructor went on a night flight w/o a handheld backup. If/when I get my CFI rating, I will always be carrying a backup.

I had similar experience at night in my new-to-me Comanche. Had to hand crank the gear down, etc. Luckily, tower knew where we were and got right on the light signals. After that, I always carry a handheld backup radio and frequently check the charge. You can also try calling the tower from your cell phone if need be.
 
Did check the circuit breakers. Everything checked out good. The plane had just undergone maintenance and had a solenoid replaced so I am sure that had something to do with it.
 
Sounds like you shorted somewhere. Eh, it happens from time to time.:yes: Look for a light gun signal. I would have also called the tower on my cell via my Zulu, but I know not everyone can do that.

I about blew out the radio stack a few weeks ago. One of the LED landing lights developed a short that drew about 60 amps for a few seconds. Lets just say the air had a nice acidic smell to it afterwords. :no:
 
Brad Z said:
Your instructor is full of it. In order to be certified, an airplane must be able to climb at gross weight with full flaps.
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That's what my instructor told me when we did the flaps exercise.
It was in a 172 with 40 degrees of flaps, and it wasn't a great climb for sure, but not holding altitude?. Maybe something is wrong with that airplane.
 
My CFI didn't have a hh either. I wonder if the CFI got reamed for entering class B w/o comms or xpdr?
 
Lost all electric in a 172 ,at night. No big deal Fly the aircraft. Had a handheld.,and antennae mounted for the portable.
 
A couple notes:

You should be able to maintain altitude in an airplane with full flaps. Good luck doing a proper slow flight demonstration if you cannot.

Handhelds are generally very poor transmitters without an airframe antenna with a cable waiting for connection. The few times I've used them without the external antenna I could hear ATC but they couldn't receive me.
 
Fly the plane, as long as the twirly thing out front is spinning you are good to go.
 
Did you happen to catch if he squawked 7600?
 
I bet the alternator had failed and nobody caught it until the voltage fell enough to let the master contactor chatter a couple of times and then quit. When were the alternator brushes last checked?

150s don't climb worth a hoot at full flaps, whatever the law says. An overshoot with flaps stuck at 40° is a scary event.

Dan
 
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Just out of curiosity was there any other airport you could have landed at without busting class C or B? Obviously with most non-towered fields having pilot controlled lighting that wouldn't have worked but I'm curious if you guys considered it.
 
tehmightypirate said:
Just out of curiosity was there any other airport you could have landed at without busting class C or B? Obviously with most non-towered fields having pilot controlled lighting that wouldn't have worked but I'm curious if you guys considered it.
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None that were lit. We could have flown a bit out possibly but I am not sure. I need to clarify anyways that the airport is actually below the class B. Class B is 4K and above. We were well below that.
 
Oh crap. I was only thinking of the radio failure.

Ever have the electricity go out at your house and there is no A/C but you still flip on the ceiling fan and then go "Oh Yeah.. dang it"? That is what I just did in my head with this scenario.
 
Yep - a Handheld Radio & a battery powered GPS - I do not fly without them.
 
N801BH said:
What size circuit breaker is on the landing lights..:dunno::confused:
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I have no idea actually. The circuit breaker is built into the landing light switch. I would wager it's a 1 or 5 amp breaker. I'll ask the machanics when I get to work this afternoon.
 
ARFlyer said:
I have no idea actually. The circuit breaker is built into the landing light switch. I would wager it's a 1 or 5 amp breaker. I'll ask the machanics when I get to work this afternoon.
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In a 150? A fuse, separate from the switch. 10 amps or 20 amps, depending on the bulb size.

Dan
 
Scott@KTYR said:
Yep - a Handheld Radio & a battery powered GPS - I do not fly without them.
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Does a smartphone count for both?

Either way though, why? Are you really that scared of a lost comm. situation? I've had the alternator go in a plane during a flight and it was a complete non-event aside from being stranded at an airport that closes on weekends for a few hours until someone else flew in to pick us up. In a glass cockpit plane I could see this being an issue but that's what the standby instruments are for.
 
TelMightyPirate -
No, a Smart Phone does not count for both.
I am a very conservative flyer and I want backups on everything.
When I was a NEW pilot I was on base leg at Love Field in Dallas TX between two Southwest Airliners, the tower said I was cleared to land and when I tried to key the mic to answer I lost all electrical power. I grabbed my handheld radio and told tower what had happen. They cleared me to land. Flying from Tyler into class B I did not notice that my alternator over amped and popped the fuse and I drained the battery.
It is better to have Backups and not use them, than Need backups and not have them.
 
Dan Thomas said:
150s don't climb worth a hoot at full flaps, whatever the law says. An overshoot with flaps stuck at 40° is a scary event.
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That's what I was thinking. For those that say a 150 should be able to climb with flaps 40, why do I recall seeing a lot of balked landing accidents where the pilot tried to go-around with 40 degrees of flaps?
 
Fearless Tower said:
That's what I was thinking. For those that say a 150 should be able to climb with flaps 40, why do I recall seeing a lot of balked landing accidents where the pilot tried to go-around with 40 degrees of flaps?
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One at my airport just last year. Aircraft will never fly again. Pilot walked away.
 
ipengineer said:
So for this lesson we start going over what happens when you apply flaps. 10-20-30-40 degrees in a 150! Apparently you can't maintain altitude with 40 degrees of flaps in a 150..
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As a solo student nearly 40 years ago I did a touch and go in a 150 at a 5000+ MSL airport and forgot to retract the flaps. Even though I can't remember what I did last week, the image of the hill I was approaching that day is permanently engraved in my memory. Realized what I had done just in time.
 
TMetzinger said:
...............
Handhelds are generally very poor transmitters without an airframe antenna with a cable waiting for connection. The few times I've used them without the external antenna I could hear ATC but they couldn't receive me.
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That's been my experience as well.
 
Ate there any radios that have redundant power? Something that has a standby battery with 30-45 mins reserve would sell like hotcakes.
 
Jaybird180 said:
Ate there any radios that have redundant power? Something that has a standby battery with 30-45 mins reserve would sell like hotcakes.
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I would think an Alternator failure and/or low voltage warning light would be a lot cheaper and should buy you enough time to notify ATC of your intentions before the battery dies.
 
Fearless Tower said:
That's what I was thinking. For those that say a 150 should be able to climb with flaps 40, why do I recall seeing a lot of balked landing accidents where the pilot tried to go-around with 40 degrees of flaps?
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Possibly because the pilot was poorly trained and didn't expect the strong nose-up pitch you get when you apply full power with full flaps in a 150. If you don't compensate promptly by pushing the nose down, the plane quickly stalls.

If the pilot escapes that hazard, there's still the possibility of stalling the plane by improperly pitching upward as a panicked reaction to the slow climb rate.
 
acrophile said:
… didn't expect the strong nose-up pitch you get when you apply full power with full flaps in a 150.
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You get that pitch-up with full flaps in every airplane I've flown. The worst is not a 150. It's a 182.

Cessnas in particular have very strong upward pitching moments with throttle, and the trim is naturally far nose up when landing. Part of the go-around procedure is to apply firm forward pressure to keep the aircraft level or climbing slightly until reaching Vy.
 
MAKG1 said:
You get that pitch-up with full flaps in every airplane I've flown. The worst is not a 150. It's a 182.

Cessnas in particular have very strong upward pitching moments with throttle, and the trim is naturally far nose up when landing. Part of the go-around procedure is to apply firm forward pressure to keep the aircraft level or climbing slightly until reaching Vy.
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Worst is the 185. 300 horses and a powerful trim system that lowers the leading edge of the stabilizer makes for a real handful. Both hands, sometimes.

A pilot must remember that the climb attitude is lower with flaps down. He can't let the nose come to the usual flaps-up attitude. Lowering flaps increases the angle of incidence of that span of the wing.

Dan
 
I had the electrical system take a dump when I was out flying one night in a Grumman Tiger. No lights, no radio, no flaps. Didn't want to scare the passengers, who happened to be in an 'itty bitty' airplane for the first time, so I just flew like I normally would, and landed on a dark runway. Had to guess at what my airspeed was on approach to the field, and landing without flaps on that things was a bit different, but managed it just fine.
 
my CFI and I practiced this same thing, only thing is, I have Johnson bar flaps. but we had the lights out and no landing light
 
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