peter (12/07/82)
Are our lost communications (LC) procedures obsolete? For whom? If
you have two COMs (and how many people fly IFR with only one?) what is the
probability that you'll lose both without the cause being complete electric-
al failure? My point is that this will also kill your NAV and transponder,
so the LC procedures won't work. Does anyone know of any actual cases?
Do you have a suggestion for a standard procedure to cover complete
electrical failure in IMC?
Please send me all your ideas, with my thanks.
Peter Hirsch (CFII)
Bell Labs, 1A106
Whippany, NJ 07981wolit@sri-unix (12/07/82)
While it's true that the probability of losing both coms independently is quite small, the probability of alternator failure is much larger. Once your alternator goes, you don't lose all electrical power at once, you're just forced to rely on your battery for all the juice you use. If you shut down all electrical devices except one nav radio, you could probably keep going for quite some time -- my guess is that you'd be able to complete your trip. Transmitting takes a lot more power than receiving, so after letting ATC know what was up, you'd probably be better off saving the energy for navigation, and let them worry about clearing the airspace ahead of you -- that's what your flight plan was for. Jan Wolitzky, BTL MH
danny@sri-unix (12/08/82)
In addition to wolit's and ark's relevant comments, I would point out the following: 1) you may have two comm radios but probably only one mike jack 2) many people fly with only one mike 3) you might be using the speaker and not have headphones aboard The following have all happened to me (in VFR conditions) with 2 functioning comm radios: 1) Loss of comm due to broken speaker connection 2) Loss of comm due to broken push-to-talk connection in mike 3) Loss of comm because mike plug had become partially unseated from its jack. Remember Murphy. Dan Kahn