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Old 29th Jul 2020, 18:01
  #7 (permalink)  
TheOddOne
 
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Down at the sharp pointy end, where all the weather is made.
Age: 74
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I had similar in an Arrow at night, with the owner in the left seat, doing his night rating (an extra in the UK, but not in the US or probably Canada). Anyhow, we were fat, dumb and happy at 3,500' when the RADAR guy said 'just lost your secondary return'. As you say, it was a KT76. A few seconds later, the displays on the other boxes started to flicker. Hit the Master off, then turned everything off in turn, then turned the Master back on. The major effect of turning the Master off was losing the intercom! Pointing and shouting made it work. This Arrow had the benefit of not only an ammeter but a voltmeter, instead of a low voltage light. If we'd had the latter, we'd have been better placed as our complacency hadn't included a scan of the voltmeter, which wasn't illuminated by the cockpit lighting. We turned one com back on and told ATC we had an electrical failure, declared an emergency (a Pan, Pan, do you have those in Canada?), swung round and headed to the nearest airport. The RADAR guy said 'cleared to land any runway'. Nice. Turned off the master again, by this time we could see really well outside with no lights on inside. Then we realised the gear comes down with an electrically driven hydraulic motor. Oh. Master back on, hit the gear switch, got the red light, then 3 greens. Phew! Master back off. Landed just fine, taxy off the runway, met by 3 huge truck painted red with flashy blue lights. Night vision destroyed. Turned master and com back on, got taxy instructions, parked on stand and shut down.
It turned out when the menders got to the aircraft the following day that the alternator regulator had fried. Finished off the night rating later that week, watching ALL the gauges like a hawk!

Postscript.
There's a really amusing story involving the menders and their trip out to our Arrow. They were on a 'round robin' of several jobs at different airfields, in a venerable Cessna 182 (a straight-tail version with mechanical flaps, which is important in this story). They departed from fixing our Arrow with 3 POB, 2 licensed engineers and a mechanic. As they departed, they asked the tower for an early right turn. 'Affirm', she said, so they did a 45 AOB turn just below the level of the Tower windows. 'Not THAT early!' she cried. Anyhow, as they rolled wings level at 500' AGL, the engine went to idle power. Quick as a flash, the pilot pulled ALL the flap and made a decent landing in the only available field, stopping just before the stone wall at the end. If it had been a later model with electric flaps, they would never have come down in time. So, our plucky 3 got out, removed the cowlings and found the throttle linkage had come undone. Now, I thought throttles were supposed to default to full power under these circumstances, but this one didn't. So with all the tools etc they had it fixed and the cowlings back on, just as the local Police and fire service turned up for the major accident, followed by the Air Ambulance. The pilot waved them all away, paced out the field and got his mates to get a lift back to the airfield as he reckoned he'd only get out of the field without them on board. And so it was, back to work, with only the embarrassing story about the 'local pilot hero wrestling the controls' in the local paper a week later.

TOO
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