Hi all, Quite a bit of commentary about risk, system failure etc.
So I am convinced everything will fail sooner than later. I make my living on failing machines, so I may appear a pessimist about machines, or an optimist about future employment fixing them. On the upside there is so much failed stuff I get paid more than just several times every day since 1988 to set those broken machines straight. I find it particularly interesting to see the failures that come in groups or waves. I experienced such an odd failure scenerio in aviation recently. I bought an experimental flying boat, a volmer home built, OMG, what a pretty unit! And a blast to fly! A cub can't touch a volmer for fun. Sadly I broke that and am still working to fix it. Anyway there is an annual seaplane fly in at NW Idaho, and I and a friend went in the volmer. What a blast! the mountain crossing, middle of nowhere overnight camping, etc. However the alternator quit near Idaho and we made our way there and home by never turning on the battery switch the whole time, except to run the starter motor, and then to cross under the Seattle class B. Needed adsb working for that. I found the High current alternator output wire had failed by vibration fatigue and had simply broken off that big alternator output post. Simple to fix, and I replaced the entire wire with welding cable, better for vibration. No big deal. Then I broke the Volmer (another story), and needed another flying boat so bought a lake LA-4. We found it in Arkansas and flew it home to the Seattle area. The same seaplane fly in came up in Idaho this year, and we went again this time in the lake. A complete blast for all the same reasons, but on the way home the alternator quit outputting current! This time the plane has heavy electrical laods that quickly consumed and flattened the battery in short order (less than 40 minutes) on the final leg home. instead of panic we just turned west to get out from under the class B, shut all the electrical off and used the hand hydraulic backup pump to operate the gear and flaps. Made the uneventful landing at home in the backyard and went digging for the fault. Dang if it wasn't the SAME DAMN WIRE that broke in the Volmer! On the second occurrence of the same trip. Except this time the wire pulled out of a bad crimp rather than broke off. Pulled out of a bad crimp on a certified factory built plane. hmmm. Well, both the Volmer and the Lake are dual mag lycomings. An o290 and o360. So I will say mags are a great choice, from experience. In both cases mags brought us all the way home. My kr has one mag and one electric ignition. It'll probably make it home without an electrical system. cheers! jg
-- KRnet mailing list KRnet@list.krnet.org https://list.krnet.org/mailman/listinfo/krnet
