Power Loss

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Pictreed

Filing Flight Plan
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Pictreed
Electrical Power Loss

First post so I'll introduce...about 160 hours, IFR discountinuance on the flight portion due to bad weather last Monday so flight portion is rescheduled for Dec 4.
I started flying in 92, stopped till recently when work wanted me to travel around state and said they would pay for IFR training.

Now for the topic of the post. While waiting on my new check ride date I thought I'd go out tonight and get some more night time and my 10 TO/landings.

I flew to another airport in calm winds and did an ILS practice approach in VMC.

I left the missed hold and headed towards a controlled field for my landings when the trouble started.

The aircraft is a 1980 C172RG. (It's important to note it is an retractable gear plane)

I had just gotten ATIS and I called up the tower but there was no response. The plane is equipped with a Garmin 430 GPS and I was using the Com radio built into the GPS. About 30 seconds earlier, the screen got brighter and the avionics lights got dimmer.

So I used the old Nav/Com radio that came in the plane to see if it was working and the tower said it was really scratchy. Subsequent tries on the GPS didn't work and now tower didn't respond on Com 2 either so I quickly squawked 7600.

By this time I had lost all electrical power so I quickly reported in the blind that I had no electrical and was returning to my home airport which was also controlled and was equally in distance from my location.
 
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I had forgotten that I had switched to my home airport after squawking 7600 and reported in the blind that I had lost all electrical.

My next task...FLY THE PLANE. After I got my wits about me I started analyzing what I could do from my training so I started with all circuit breakers, cycled the avionics switch, and cycled the radios but it was dark except for the faint glow of my iPad which I had mounted on the left side of the windscreen with a Ram suction cup.

Next thing was to point my iPad towards the gauges so I could monitor my airspeed. This whole time John and Martha King was in my ear saying fly the plane first, it's not an emergency till I make it one and always remember your check list.

Check list...good time to get things ready for landing early. I got to the GUMP check and reallized after checking for the gear that there weren't any. I heard a click when I moved the gear lever but when I verified the gear outside the window I found none.

Thanks to my flight instructor for failing the gear on me on a practice approach I was able to pump the gear down with no worries. However, I planned for the gear to possibly fail on landing so I wouldn't react adversely.

Ok, now my cause and effect training came in. Flaps, ya...not. They are electrical. If they were deployed its possible one would go down and not the other or something else weird but more than likely they would work at all.

As I got closer to the airport I looked at the tower for a light gun signal (thanks Kings) but nothing. I continued down wind, turned base and final with a good crab. I dropped my left wing for crosswind and added rudder and made a smooth left main/right main landing.

After I landed I stuck one of my two flashlights out the window one moved to the right of center so I could see the yellow lines leading off the runway.

I taxied past the hold line and turned my eyes towards the tower for light gun signals but I didn't get them so I was already lined up on the correct taxi way so I continued to the flight school.
 
Welcome to POA!! I'm anxiously awaiting what would have been post 3...
 
After parking I went to another parked plane and got on the radio and called Ground. He asked me to call the tower on the land line.

I was under a Class B shelf and ATC had picked up my squawk code and the tower at my field did get the broken message about lost electrical so they had notified aircraft in the area of the situation. But the transponder was out so they didn't know who it was.

I was only worried about landing aircraft during my final so I kept the base in tight, kept a watchful eye, and kept my speed up a bit. When I landed I got off the runway as quick as practicable.

The tower knows the plane well since the flight school flew it often but they needed my information so they could inform ATC. Because of recent events over seas they were a bit concerned. The problem was that my transponder had already quit reporting when the 7600 code lit up their screen.

So now one knew where I was or who I was but that a plane reported lost Coms and then was gone.

John King explained the squawk codes like this
Hi Jack, I can't talk, I have an emergency. 7500 7600 and 7700 in that order.

A couple things I would do different. For one I should have shut all lights and electrical off in case of a fire and for the possibility the alternator, which I assumed tanked, could have put a little juice back in he battery for come last minute Coms.
 
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Sometimes you can cycle the alternator master switch on and off and reset it or that's what I have been taught never had to do it. I bet you learned more on this flight than you have on a single flight in awhile LOL.
 
You now know the secret,Fly the plane,good job.welcome to POA.
 
Sounds familiar. The first thing to fail is radio transmission. You can often receive much longer. Now you'll keep a handheld in the plane, right? And at least two flashlights at night, preferably head mounted.

FYI, you can't get split flaps in a Cessna from an electrical fault. There is only one motor. But if your lights are already gone, nothing is going to happen.
 
Thanks for the welcomes.

Another regret...not bringing the portable Com radio I had sitting in my truck!

On the plus side I had 2 flashlights and one is a head mount with a red light, my iPad and iPhone (both with Foreflight), and a backup battery for the iPad with a 2.2 amp and 1 amp charge port. Frys sells a good APC backup battery for about $40.
 
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I had a hard time following initially until I realized we weren't talking about engine power.
 
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