In reply to:
In my flying career too much emphasis in training is placed on troubleshooting electrical problems aloft versus getting on the ground to figure things out. The Canadian accident report on SwissAir 111 is the case study for this issue.
Bob,
Thanks. I couldn’t remember the name of the accident report, but that’s the one.
Flying an airplane while trying to troubleshoot an electrical problem is not an easy task. When you get a failure such as the one Greg experienced, the regulations require you to terminate the flight (as soon as practicable). This does not mean you have to land in a farmer’s field or 20 minutes short of your destination (or as Curt mentioned, flying over an overcast to reach a VFR descent). The KOL in the POH indicates that you need the Alternator 1 for both VFR and IFR flight. So the aircraft becomes unairworthy when you lose Alternator 1. Interestingly, though, Alternator 2 is only needed for IFR flight.