skadi
Lemain, it doesnt matter wether the generator brakes like hell or not! There is a freewheeling unit on the engines output shaft ( like your bicycle!! ).
If the freewheeling mechanism is not damaged or faulty. We are looking for some thing(s) that went wrong. I'm not tabling this as the reason for the crash, it's perplexing, but if we are going to speculate we ought to consider multiple failures or maybe a single primary cause that causes other damage.
Incidentally, on the subject of the effect of a full load on the generator braking the rotor shaft, of the Night Sun at 1600W, that's over 2hp. We can all visualise 1.5 electric fire bars in the context of heat power, but in terms of motive power, most of us are more comfortable with hp when it comes to orientation of magnitude. I've never experimented with an aircraft but I used to have a sailing yacht of around 3 tonnes mass (much the same as a 135) and I sometimes had to turn off the fast-charge circuit when motoring entering or leaving a harbour against the tide. Made a huge difference and that was with a 23hp diesel running.
Anything that takes a skipper by surprise in an already dangerous and high workload situation can turn routine into disaster, as I am sure we all know first hand (those near misses that still give us the collywobbles when we think of them years later?) - not that any of us here would have been so stupid
