Lost alternator in IMC

3Y3Flyer said:
Good idea, but the our Cherokee has fuses not breakers that pull out manually...it’s the one thing I don’t like about the planes design. It’s an all or nothing when you kill the avionics master. I’m sure a guy could change that with the proper amount of fun tickets paid to the local A&P.
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The avionics all have on-off switches. All except the encoder.
 
Dan Thomas said:
The avionics all have on-off switches. All except the encoder.
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The garmin GTN series does not have any built-in power switches. I'm betting other new radios they released don't either.

Should be wired to breaker that can be intentionally manually tripped IMHO.

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bnt83 said:
The garmin GTN series does not have any built-in power switches. I'm betting other new radios they released don't either.

Should be wired to breaker that can be intentionally manually tripped IMHO.

View attachment 88774
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My GTN has 2 CB’s. 1 for power to the entire unit and 1 just for the COM/NAV portion.


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Dan Thomas said:
The avionics all have on-off switches. All except the encoder.
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In most cases, but our NGT-9000, GAD28, GMU11, and turn bank are all on the master with fuses instead of a CB. After this incident, I will be looking at CB’s to be able to control the load shed a little better.
 
Daniel Katz said:
  1. The first was the most interesting. I LITERALLY lost the alternator. It's belt driven at the rear of the engine. A bolt broke and the alternator rotated. The alternator belt, somehow, kept spinning around and gouged a fuel line!!!
None of those compare to when the MASTER SWITCH failed in flight. Everything just went black rather quickly.... in IMC....
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My Tiger alternator did that, front to rear bolts sheared and it rotated, belt spun on a frozen pulley which gave a good load of smoke into the cockpit. I got a low voltage warning light for literally one second, then the battery exploded as I was shedding load ... it was a night flight, and luckily I was only a couple of miles from my field. Normal flashlights were horrible, the light on the Iphone penetrates smoke MUCH better. Checked for no flames and then vented ...
 
3Y3Flyer said:
In most cases, but our NGT-9000, GAD28, GMU11, and turn bank are all on the master with fuses instead of a CB. After this incident, I will be looking at CB’s to be able to control the load shed a little better.
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The NGT-9000 is especially a pain without a CB. There is no way to reset it if it flakes out other than powering down the avionics master switch. I had my NGT-9000 screen freeze up when trying to switch to 1200 during an IPC. That was a little bit of a distraction! It started working again a bit later, but this convinced me to put a dedicated CB in the panel for the transponder at the next annual. I have breakers installed for the GAD-29B and each G5.
 
Thanks for sharing the event 3Y3flyer. The same thing happened to me and really spooked me for a couple months afterwards. The theory on how to handle the emergency is not too hard, but with the family on board, navigating to an emergency airport and getting the plates out while flying the plane with loss of electric trim, failing radios etc. it's pretty hairy. And I agree that ATC is a Godsend in these emergencies. What bugs me is that alternator failures seem inevitable if you own a plane. I almost quite flying high performance, single engine piston, IFR and moved back to VFR low and slow with manual trim (but didn't yet). The alternator is the achilles heal of highly automated planes like the Cirrus.
 
JeffB said:
What bugs me is that alternator failures seem inevitable if you own a plane. I almost quite flying high performance, single engine piston, IFR and moved back to VFR low and slow with manual trim (but didn't yet). The alternator is the achilles heal of highly automated planes like the Cirrus.
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If you don't get the 500 hour alternator inspections done, then yes, it's inevitable.
As with vacuum pumps and magnetos. Running components to failure is a good way to find yourself in trouble.
 
I have always gotten the 100hr and annual done, and this is at a "big" class C airport that services commercial jets etc. And yet many other pilots have had them fail at least once during their flying careers. And if not the alternator then the MCU.
 
JeffB said:
I have always gotten the 100hr and annual done, and this is at a "big" class C airport that services commercial jets etc. And yet many other pilots have had them fail at least once during their flying careers. And if not the alternator then the MCU.
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The usual 100 hour and annual inspections do not involve removal and opening of the alternator or magnetos. These are out-of-phase items. Most never get anything until they fail.
 
danhagan said:
My Tiger alternator did that, front to rear bolts sheared and it rotated, belt spun on a frozen pulley which gave a good load of smoke into the cockpit. I got a low voltage warning light for literally one second, then the battery exploded as I was shedding load ... it was a night flight, and luckily I was only a couple of miles from my field. Normal flashlights were horrible, the light on the Iphone penetrates smoke MUCH better. Checked for no flames and then vented ...
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what caused the battery to explode?
 
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