Both alternator belts broke tonight while IMC on the LPV1. I was half way between the IAF and the FF. In the middle of a lake effect snow event. No ground contact. The Auracle flashed a red low voltage warning and the draw on the battery was -35 amps. Batt volts were 22.5 and falling. Every thing was on heater, pitot, prop, lights, etc etc.

I have standby battery on SAM and the 796. My only concern was getting the gear down. Turned off lights, prop heat, heater and draw lessened. I will post the engine monitor graph later.


Gear went down fine as did flaps. Broke out about 800 ft.

All in a day's, er night's work I suppose.


If the gear hadn't dropped it would have been a pain. IMC cranking that thing down.

A bit of Karma...flight was 40 minutes. I was originally headed to MSP (1.5 hours). third from the departure I had only what I can say is a weird feeling and decided to just go home and do MSP later. I was VFR to MSP, filed IFR on GP called clearance when I was number 2. Had I not done that.....hmmmm....

Sometimes you go with the feeling.

$hi£

Two belts at once? Why?

My guess would be that they broke in quick succession because of the additional load on the 2nd alternator.

And had the gear not come down, I might just land gear up on purpose rather than magnifying an already very high workload.

My guess would be that they broke in quick succession because of the additional load on the 2nd alternator.

And had the gear not come down, I might just land gear up on purpose rather than magnifying an already very high workload.

Kept your cool!
Well done!

Question: do those belts do any damage "under the hood" when they break under load like that?

Naw

He ain't known as the iceman for nuttin you know.......

Mark, way to keep your cool.

Time for a commander again

Just needed a little OEI with one other system failure to get his heart rate up. Perhaps throw in a 200 ft ceiling for good measure.

Interesting- with an 800 ft ceiling and a non-hostile terminal area, how many would consider circling to crank the gear down- vs climbing back into the soup with limited battery life?
I think I would vote for "once I see the ground I'm going to keep eyes on the ground and stay near the airport"

I actually think you are correct Scott. Safest play is to give it to the insurance company. Especially single pilot. Had I stayed below the deck aligned with the runway I would have gone into the black hole that they call Gitche Gumme (aka Lake Superior). Certain death IMO.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wreck_ ... Fitzgerald

Possible, or #1 broke some time before #2 and wasn't noticed.

It is always interesting how systems are not as independent as we think they are.


My first thought is not that way. I have two functional motors and 800 ft ceilings. I can get the gear cranked down. Also, I have only minutes to go and the battery should be able to handle this.

If I had been OEI, maybe I look at the gear up option more seriously. Once you put gear down, there is no go around.

A gear up landing has its risks, mainly loss of directional control or fuel fire.

Add in an engine failure, GPS failure, and 200 ft ceilings, now you have a normal sim session. :-)

Mike C.

The readout from the Auracle should be interesting...tale of the tape.

Nice job Mark! Losing power in IMC gets serious pretty quickly....

I'd be curious about the condition of the alternator belts. I recently changed one of mine, because it looked brittle and had some cracks at the base of some of the teeth. It was only 3 years old. Nice job handling the situation.

I am thinking about changing belts every 100 hours regardless of condition. May as often as an oil change - 50 hours.