Yes, shame about the 737 - it's not what I would call a 'modern jet' at all.
To answer about the A321 genny; the generator output went intermittent - on, off, on, off etc. with a period of less than a second. I could hear a loud "bang bang bang" - happening as quickly as it takes to say that - coming from the engine which sounded like engine stalling but I think was the genny loading and unloading the gearbox.
The ECAM, the single audio chime and the overhead panel were all warning then not warning, warning, then not warning - PF lost his instruments and the A/P and A/THR dropped out, it was chaotic. PF gave me the aircraft and then, as PM, he read the ECAM and started to move his hand towards the overhead panel but then the warning disappeared, only to come back. The ECAM SD screen flashed up with the electrical page for less than a second then off again - all going on, off, on off every second.
Out of the corner of my eye, (I was hand flying), I noticed an amber - something - in the vicinity of the Gen 1 box on the electrical page, so I realised it could be an intermittent electrical fault and suggested turning off Gen 1, since we could not do anything sensible with everything changing so rapidly. This we did after starting the APU, and everything calmed down. Then we could see that Gen 1 had failed, so we switched it off and after a discussion carried on home with the APU and Gen 2. We were later told it was a dry or loose joint on the electrical output - a fault that same genny had been previously investigated for on a different aircraft !
Last edited by Uplinker; 11th Dec 2020 at 15:29.