Aborted flight to Buckeye Municipal Airport due to an issue with my rectifier/regulator. Great job by Falcon Field ATC to get me directly back to the field.
Nice job, sorry you missed the air show, the night show was spectacular. Story time, my brother and I flew into Falcon Field years ago in a C172 returning from Page, AZ after a quick work trip. The battery was not holding a charge but the alternator was keeping the electronics online. Was getting dark when we were arriving at Falcon and everything would go dark at idle so we had to land a bit fast with some power to keep the lights and radio on. It ended fine but sure gets the heart pumping!
Yeah, you know the airplane isn't going to fall out of the sky, but whenever that engine monitor alert goes off, it does raise the pulse a little. Do a little troubleshooting, turn off all unnecessary electronics an get it on the ground. Let me know if there is something you might want to see in the next one.
@@sportaviation2401 So far I'm enjoying your journey to visit all the airports in the valley. It is particularly interesting to me as I live here as well. That is a sexy airplane, how about a video tour, walk around of your airplane? A little "show and tell". I didn't see one on the channel yet.
Assuming you have a Rotax, do you feel comfortable in being able to find someone to diagnose and service it, including electronics, etc. In this case, you were able to diagnose it yourself. "Every" FBO is familiar with Lycoming, etc., but not so much Rotax, so just curious. Glad you could readily diagnose and fix it for short money. P.S. Your frequent cut-ins to the instrument panel are very helpful and informative in following your flight. As always, all the best.
It helped that I had the same issue with my first Sportcruiser and that I was so close to the airport. If I had been further away, I would have started shutting down all unnecessary electronics. No sweat...😀
Curious why you continued the flight for so long before deciding to return to the field and communicating that? Or is that a product of the editing? At 11.X volts, that's a clear alternator failure. Some avionics will start to get funky with anything less than 12 volts, and with full electrical load and an older battery you can discharge your battery pretty quickly, which will eventually result in loss of comms. With an alert and volts under 12 I would have made the decision to return right away before anything else can stack up.
Considering I was still in the Delta, I don't think this qualified as an "emergency". Dynon has a 1 hour backup battery, airplane will keep flying, I was still in the Delta, new battery, had the issue before with my other Sportcruiser, was on the ground in about 5 minutes, carry a handheld radio with me..I could go on. Just wouldn't have had a battery if I had continued flight to Buckeye. Further from an airport, I would have turned off all non-essential electronics and landed. Due to prior generator message, I actually had charger with me. Would have found an outlet, charged the battery and flown back to Falcon.
