My first emergency?? Com failure

gitmo234

gitmo234

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gitmo234
Does a com failure count as an in-flight emergency?

Went wheels up this morning at 6 am heading on a long cross country south. I start approaching the patuxent river restricted areas and start making a call for clearance through and suddenly my avionics panel starts cycling through on and off.

I could hear intermittent transmissions so I advise pax river to disregard my request, I had a com failure, squwaked 7600, and asked pax (if they could hear me) to give Easton a call. All I heard was "got off phone.... Them".

I diverted toward Easton, waited until I got an avionics cycle that stayed on, and punched in their frequency and announced I was inbound, had previously heard on ATIS that runway 4 was in use and I would circle near the field to await light gun signals while setting up on a downwind for runway 4.

I setup on the downwind, occasionally I would hear half a transmission and caught "69A cleared to land" and saw my light gun signal.

Landed, watched to signals and found the maintenance shop. Now here I sit at the cafe having breakfast with my wife.
 
And if anyone wonders this seems to be a generator failure. I had a rebuilt one installed on annual a few weeks ago.
 
nyaaa, not even close to an emergency.
It's called owning an airplane.
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actually, it owns you
 
This is one of those situations where it would be good to have a handheld in the flight bag. I have had a Sportys handheld (the older model without the ILS) for years, and needed it only one occasion flying IFR from the Charlotte area to Raleigh. The audio panel had a freak out, but I managed to talk with Greensboro approach on the handheld and within 15 minutes, the Nav/Coms were back up and working fine (wound up being a bad diode or something like that). Anyway is was handy to have. The radio still works fine, I just replace the AA batteries the same time as annual every year and do the occasional radio check.
 
If the outcome of the flight was never in question then I'd say it wasn't an emergency. An inconvenience? Yes. An emergency? No.
 
Radio failure in VFR conditions is not an emergency. Your life or property was not in danger.
 
Well if there was ever a "first emergency" to have, I was hoping this would be it. Now we wait.
 
An alternator failure will kill transmission before reception, and each transmission attempt will make it worse. It takes a lot more power to transmit.

Your problem sounds like a poor electrical connection in the radio or headset. Did you try a second radio?

I've had radio problems three times now (each time a different fault), so I picked up a used Sportys handheld, and of course it hasn't happened since. One got me temporarily stuck at a Class C until I figured out how to hit the PTT just right. Another got me really stuck at a remote airport when it became obvious the alternator had failed on the ground.
 
gitmo234 said:
Ha!

Diagnosis: stuck contact in voltage regulator that blew a fuse
Click to expand...

Well handled; you kept your cool and did everything right.

Question: a blown fuse causes an intermittent avionics failure? I would have thought the fuse is either blown (== off) or not blown (== on).
 
I'm definetly going to get a handheld after this.

Real diagnosis was upgrading the generator to 30 amp and not throwing a 30 amp fuse in. A brand new voltage regulator contact appeared to be very mildly stuck and blew the fuse. Contact is "unstuck" and they're closing up.

There's some weather that we'll probably miss now in VA and SC, on our way to jekyll
 
DJTorrente said:
Well handled; you kept your cool and did everything right.

Question: a blown fuse causes an intermittent avionics failure? I would have thought the fuse is either blown (== off) or not blown (== on).
Click to expand...

The generator fuse blew so we ran on the battery which started to die, causing cycling
 
gitmo234 said:
The generator fuse blew so we ran on the battery which started to die, causing cycling
Click to expand...

That doesn't make sense.

Were the fuel gauges also cycling?

What kind of crap generator has a fuse instead of a circuit breaker?

Overcharging can cause some interesting faults, and some electrical systems have an over voltage interlock that might cause cycling like this.
 
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Glad it turned out ok and wasn't a ton of AMU to fix.

I had a radio failure on a solo XC as a student. But I was in the middle of nowhere AZ. Made getting back into Tucson a bit of a problem, but we figured it out and I flew loose formation with an instructor who came over to get me.
 
MAKG1 said:
That doesn't make sense.

Were the fuel gauges also cycling?

What kind of crap generator has a fuse instead of a circuit breaker?

Overcharging can cause some interesting faults, and some electrical systems have an over voltage interlock that might cause cycling like this.
Click to expand...

I'm in a 1956 with manual gauges. I can cycle them by shaking the airplane.
 
Yeah, the light shut everything down when I tried. The radios quit cycling all together. Transponder died. After I tried that I more or less got nothing on the radios. Battery was reading <9 volts when they tested it
 
Just another day in aviation,Murphy's law if anything can go wrong ,it will go wrong. Would surest you get a portable with fixed antenna,if you fly with a generator,never had much luck with generators.
 
I was going to hold off on an alternator conversion, but will likely get it done this year now
 
Please, please, please say it is an emergency. I had a radio failure on my first solo cross country :yikes: and it would be soooo cool to say I had an emergency on my first solo cross country. :yes: :thumbsup:

Unfortunately, my CFI didn't treat it that way :no:. After I diverted (I was heading to a towered airport when it happened; decided it was better to go to a non-towered one) and called my CFI to ask what to do, the conversation went:

CFI: Does the airplane fly OK without the radio?
Me: Yes.
CFI: Well, then, come on home.
 
I had an alternator failure at night....lost comms* (and everything else) in a class Delta on final. flew the plane home. happened to have a backup handheld which paid for itself on first use.

I still consider it an incredible learning experience, def not an emergency.

*I agree with MAKG, we could hear the tower pretty clear but our transmissions were garbled and quickly got worse until full outage.
 
My first radio failure was in 1969 in a C-150E with a Narco Mark 12 radio (remember vacuum tubes?). Only the receiver side was out; I assumed I was still transmitting. I entered the pattern at Fullerton, calling in the blind. There was a red light from the tower, so I exited the pattern. When I returned a few minutes later there was a green light, and I landed.

On the ground the receiver started working again. The controller said, "uh, the reason you got a red the first time was 'cuz we pushed the wrong button."

Good exercise for both sides. :redface:

Com failures were more frequent in those days with vacuum-tube radios and, before headsets became commonplace, crummy cabin speakers.
 
Greetings from North Carolina, KCTZ.

Boy did that upgraded fuse do the trick. Like a brand new machine. Stopping for a drink and fuel. May make one more stop on the way to Jekyll.
 
Had something similar recently - in my case it was a poor ground connection causing the entire electrical system to drop off-line.
 
I had a very similar scenario happen to me in the 1966 C172 I bought back in 1996 - on the very first multi-leg cross country flight from Clarksville, TN to Midland, TX.

Generator (a 35-amp turd even then) breaker had popped and I had reset it once but it popped again and I wasn't willing to reset it again and risk a fire. I had already been cleared to land but received light gun signals at Midland Int'l (KMAF) on landing and taxi in and out (for the short flight over to Airpark - KMDD). That breaker became notorious and we even checked it or replaced it (forget) but it kept popping on subsequent flights.

I promptly upgraded to a 60 amp alternator.
 
South Carolina, waiting for a storm over the island to pass. Looks like another 30 minutes or so and we're clear.

Like to of lessons learned so far but a big one is that I think I've only got about 6-7 hours of flying before my brain turns to mush, and drink plenty of water
 
Dehydration is brutal. We always pack a bag and ice pack with some fruit/nut bars and Gatorade for me and water for my bride. You can't out fly the bladder anyway so enjoy the flight, keep hydrated.

Look forward to your Jekyll island PIREP, we're headed down for a week in september. Booked a room at the Hampton.
 
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Our 10 minute "wait until the storm passes" turned into over an hour. Landed at 2100. Once I explore a bit I'll send you the full details via pm but do a general write up for the group. Met a lot of good people along the way. Stopped in every state. MD, VA, NC, SC and GA.

I'm exhausted. Time to grab a drink and revel at my 8+ hour cross country.
 
gitmo234 said:
Does a com failure count as an in-flight emergency?
Click to expand...

According to AIM 6-4-1b, that's up to you:

"Whether two-way communications failure constitutes an emergency depends on the circumstances, and in any event, it is a determination made by the pilot..." [emphasis added]​

If you read the Pilot/Controller Glossary definitions of emergency, distress, and urgency, you will see that you have wide latitude in making that determination.
 
Just remember to say "Panne! Panne!" Oh, wait, the radio is out...
 
Circuit Flyer said:
Just remember to say "Panne! Panne!" Oh, wait, the radio is out...
Click to expand...

Fortunately, there's no regulation requiring emergencies to be declared! (Of course it's a good idea when possible.)
 
gitmo234 said:
Our 10 minute "wait until the storm passes" turned into over an hour. Landed at 2100. Once I explore a bit I'll send you the full details via pm but do a general write up for the group. Met a lot of good people along the way. Stopped in every state. MD, VA, NC, SC and GA.

I'm exhausted. Time to grab a drink and revel at my 8+ hour cross country.
Click to expand...

Time to spare, go by air!
 
I've had comm failure 3 times. The first of which was with a CFI and he had a handheld.

As a result of that I bought a handheld for my solo and have had it on every subsequent flight. I've had to use it twice, it makes it a non-event.
 
gitmo234 said:
Does a com failure count as an in-flight emergency?

Went wheels up this morning at 6 am heading on a long cross country south. I start approaching the patuxent river restricted areas and start making a call for clearance through and suddenly my avionics panel starts cycling through on and off.

I could hear intermittent transmissions so I advise pax river to disregard my request, I had a com failure, squwaked 7600, and asked pax (if they could hear me) to give Easton a call. All I heard was "got off phone.... Them".

I diverted toward Easton, waited until I got an avionics cycle that stayed on, and punched in their frequency and announced I was inbound, had previously heard on ATIS that runway 4 was in use and I would circle near the field to await light gun signals while setting up on a downwind for runway 4.

I setup on the downwind, occasionally I would hear half a transmission and caught "69A cleared to land" and saw my light gun signal.

Landed, watched to signals and found the maintenance shop. Now here I sit at the cafe having breakfast with my wife.
Click to expand...

Good job handling the situation.

A Hand Held Radio is a good idea. I had total electrical failure and lost Comm as I was on Base leg to land at Love Field in Dallas. My hand held radio help communicate with the tower.
 
gitmo234 said:
And if anyone wonders this seems to be a generator failure. I had a rebuilt one installed on annual a few weeks ago.
Click to expand...

Did you get an alternator warning light annunciator? I only asks because my alt died in flight once too and I didn't get the annunciator, which had checked out ok in pre-flight checks.

Mechanic later told me annunciator will almost never go on (?) in such a failure.:yikes:
 
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