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Total Electrical Failure on First Leg to Oshkosh - self induced

BJohnson

BJohnson

Well Known Member
I was at altitude settled into cruise for the 4 hr leg from Auburn WA to Logan UT to pick up my son from school, and talking to Chinook Approach for flight following. About an hour into the flight, I take a drink of water, and put the bottle back into the gear leg weldment, and poof - all electrical power goes off. The Dynon alarm says "aircraft power lost". The radio and transponder are off. No power from the plane power alternator, and no voltage from the battery. I thought for sure I had lost the alternator, or the alternator belt, but the battery was offline too. I started a slow descent to Hermiston Oregon since I was 9500 ft above them and there are builders on the airport that could help.

Trouble shooting began. I switched on the ebus and power came back to the transponder. I looked at the Cessna type split master and that seemed correct. But a second glance conformed that both battery and alternator were both off. Being careful to turn on the battery first (thanks Vansairforce for that previous discussion!), and then the alternator, everything came back on center was calling my N number since I had disappeared from the the radar.

It turns out, the the location for my master alternator/battery switches are in the perfect alignment with the arc of the water bottle path when I finish drinking and go to place it in the the gear weldment. The glancing blow was perfect enough to flip both switches, but not enough to feel any impact through the bottle. I was able to continue and it make to Oshkosh the next day in time for the deluge.

A couple of takeways:

- my switches are on the left corner of the panel can readily be accidentally turned off by a water bottle or anything else I may be placing down to my lower left.

- I need to install a switch guard or relocate the switches (any one know of a good switch guard for this?)

- I have the switches labeled "battery" and "alternator", but not on or off. I am surprised how easily I mistook the position of the switches at the first glance. Labeling On/Off positions might have helped not missing this the first time.

- It was reassuring to know that when using VFR flight following, they are there to help if an actual emergency comes up.
 
I?ve done the same thing

I have my split switch in the same location. I’ve done the same thing a few times, just my hand lowering down from adjusting knobs on the panel. I fly IFR, so I needed to do some thing. First I put a guard just above the switches. And I still knocked it off. So now I have a second guard over the center of the switches. That did the trick. I got them from stein. Look through their electrical accessories. The second one I got was aluminum and I was able to slightly bend it enough to make over the split switch center. When turn the switch on I stick my finger into the slot between the two guards. Not a problem at all, and I haven’t turned it off once since I have them both on.

Ted has them below. I mounted mine horizontally though, just above the switch and in the center of the switch. Your finger coming down can fit right between the vertical mounted guards.
 
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I personally think that the Honeywell switches with the lockout guard is the only way to go. Once it?s flipped up/on it?s impossible to inadvertently flip down/off without pulling the lever out to get past the guard.
 
Mark33 said:
I personally think that the Honeywell switches with the lockout guard is the only way to go. Once it?s flipped up/on it?s impossible to inadvertently flip down/off without pulling the lever out to get past the guard.
Click to expand...


THIS IS THE BEST SOLUTION

Good advice above.

I use the 3 position switches with DPDT all the time. For things that need OFF-ON-ON, such as a Master with VPX being the first on, (middle position) and a VPX bypass (all the way up) powering the essential things inc trim, just n case of a complete VPX melt down.

The other is alternators. OFF-ALT1-ALT2

They are not cheap, in fact they are expensive, but they are the only choice for me. My customers do not get a say in it anymore, I don't even ask, they just get them. Non negotiable.
 
This is an interesting human factors discussion. A couple days ago, after I landed, I could barely hear the tower on the radio. It turns out that when I used my right hand to operate my gear switch, it swiped the volume control on my radio and turned it down to almost zero. Doh!
 
Additional takeaway

Maybe an additional takeaway would be to get back to the basics of checklist or sweep before descending down to land. It?s been discussed here many times and I?m guilty of it but trying to improve on not getting complacent with using a checklist or doing a sweep at each stage of the flight, especially during an emergency stage of flight.
 
Been there done that - in hard IFR

BJohnson said:
- my switches are on the left corner of the panel can readily be accidentally turned off .
Click to expand...

Having this experience already, I used the toggle/lock switches (master and backup batt) for this VERY reason.

They are not cheap, but not easy to bump off either.

I did this (turning off the master) while catching an unscrewed clock adjustment knob at 8000', in the soup on my long instrument cross country. Long stupid reason why. ATC guy fell off his stool. Turbulence, icing, etc was all around us. No AP, just me still flying along. Switched all back on . . . 32 kilo back with you, a little glitch in the cabin . . .
 
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Is this the switch?

Mark33 said:
I personally think that the Honeywell switches with the lockout guard is the only way to go. Once it’s flipped up/on it’s impossible to inadvertently flip down/off without pulling the lever out to get past the guard.
Click to expand...

I like the idea of changing the switch. Is this the one you are referring to? https://www.steinair.com/product/locking-toggle-switch-dpdt-ononon/

How do they lock? Does it require a pull prior to switching?

Oops, missed Bill’s link in the previous post, but would that one work for off, master on, alt on?
 
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BJohnson said:
I like the idea of changing the switch. Is this the one you are referring to? https://www.steinair.com/product/locking-toggle-switch-dpdt-ononon/

Oops, missed Bill’s link in the previous post, but would that one work for off, master on, alt on?
Click to expand...

Yes, that is what I use it for - Master (off)- batt on - batt+alt on. A tug on the switch post and move to position, it locks on release. The link is not the right configuration, but Stein has what you want. on-on-on
 
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