We had GEN 1, (A321), go intermittent while in the cruise, about an hour out of our UK base - full output, no output, full output, no output etc. As quickly as it takes to say that. The shock loading on the engine made a sound like back-firing - bang bang bang.
To start with, we didn't know what had gone wrong and the ECAM and the cockpit warning lights and the single chime were chaotically going on and off like a Christmas tree, making no sense, and we could not follow the ECAM instructions at all - everything kept changing so rapidly. The aircraft could not cope, Cap lost all his instruments, and the aircraft spat out the A/P and the A/THR. So I took control and flew manually, with manual thrust.
Cap was trying to make sense of what was happening, but he couldn't, because it was changing so rapidly. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed - during the fractions of a second that the ELEC page was displayed - that there seemed to be something amber in the region of GEN 1. With my electronics background, I realised what might be the problem, and I suggested to the Cap that we switch off GEN 1 completely.
This he did and all became calm and we could finally understand what had happened. We started the APU, restored the A/P etc, and continued home.
Whilst it was very disturbing, we were never in immediate danger and were over land, near many airfields, not over the middle of an ocean. But the fault rendered the on-board diagnostic ECAM useless, and it took two pilots to sort out the problem: One to hand-fly, the other to reconfigure the aircraft, and both to work out what the problem was.
Would a semi-autonomous aircraft cope if its electrical supply became compromised?