Preparing for the unexpected...
This evening, after 2505.4 trouble free hours of operation of the electrical system of my C150, it quit. First the alternator. Everything checked as it should be, no popped breakers, nothing else wrong. Recylcling did not fix anything. Then after some massive shedding of electrical loads, the battery quit, as I was extending the flaps for landing. Landing light? Not a hope! I had thought that the battery would hang in longer, it's only a few years old.
With the final leg of my flight in full darkness, I kept a very careful watch for aircraft who now could not see me. My super bright white LED flashlight in flash mode out the back window, perhaps offered a little visibility at the back for just about every other aircraft on earth which could catch up to a 150!
My little home made tiny white LED party light on a clear suction cup, on the airspeed was nice too, or I would have been landing into the black hole with the flashlight in my teeth.
And of course, after landing and shut down, a repeated system check demonstrated that everything worked perfectly! I'll investigat tomorrow...
As I flew along for the last half hour, no longer able to enjoy the music on my noise cancelling headphones, navigate by GPS in the dark, or expect a landing light for a landing, I thought back to our recent turmoil about landing, and how vital it was to actually know the airspeed to complete it safely. Having prepared for the unexpected, I can happily report that I did not have to prove the poster wrong!
Pilot DAR, "who had foolishly thought that system failures were from my past, not my present!"