To insightful, that’s a good thought, I’ll definitely consider it. I generally don’t drive it on Tuesdays and Friday so that might work.
To db4690, also good thoughts. Since it’s still under warranty, I’d like to get the charging system checked out anyway. As for the battery issues, it may well be a bad battery. It could also be a parasitic drain. My neighbor has a Ford F350 that he hardly ever drives anymore. He had a parasitic drain, which turned out to be his alarm. He ended up getting a heavy duty battery. I’ve always thought that a lot of OEM wear items (tires, especially) were of the “lowest bidder” variety.
Would you fly in an airplane that played the Windows boot up music after you turned on the ignition?
Rotax kept points and condensers in their areo engine line long after they used electronic ignition on their snowmobile, watercraft, and motorcycle engines. There’s a difference between maintenance free and trouble free.
Let’s just say that your airplane suddenly becomes a glider, a really mediocre glider. A Cessna 172 has a glide ratio of about 9 to 1 at 60 knots indicated air speed according to the internet.
State of the art sailplanes have glide ratios of around 70 to 1. But there’s more to sailplane performance than a good glide ratio. You also want a good glide ratio at a wide range of speeds so you can go fast between the thermals and penetrate headwinds.
But yes, in a boat or car, an engine out is an inconvenience and a nuisance. In an airplane, it’s an emergency. That’s why aircraft engines tend to stick to low tech magnetos.
I like B. L. E.'s point. In all the years I have been driving, I never suffered an ignition failure in a points and condenser ignition system. Every Fall I used to change points and condenser, inspect dist cap and rotor, wires and plugs, set dwell, then timing. I did get calls every winter for help from friends who bragged about never about never doing that and now they couldn’t get their car started.
I know the propeller is just a big fan to keep the pilot cool during the flight. I know this for a fact, because if it stops in flight you can really see the poor guy start to sweat.
I really love EFI and water cooling in motorcycles, but, if I had to cross the Mojave desert solo on a motorcycle, I would pick the most air-cooled, kick started, points and condenser, gravity fed carburetor motorcycle they make, and a full tool kit.
It’s been a while (quite a while) since I’ve flown, but all the planes we flew had magnetos. In fact they had 2 magnetos, 2 sets of sparkplugs and each with their own wires going to the mags. There were 2 fuel tanks, two fuel pumps (one electric, one mechanical), 2 compasses (one magnetic, one directional gyro), etcetera. Redundant systems are the name of the game.
Also, I was taught that a good pilot always has an emergency landing spot picked out while flying. That way panic does not set in when an emergency arises. It becomes automatic to observe terrain and suitable “landing” sites while cruising along.
There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots. CSA
haha, reminds me something
25+ years old clunker I’ve got from my dad had failing breaks and they failed on me twice until I completely redid everything, so for years, while driving, I was mentally planning where I steer that ton-of-metal-on-the-wheels if it happens again
I know someone who lived in the United Arab Emirates for a couple years. When it was time to come home, the plane went EAST for a while to avoid some terrain which liked to shoot missiles at aircraft, then turned straight north across the north pole, which soon became flying straight south. I have always wondered what his back up place to sit down would look like.
Over the north pole is actually the shortest distance to the U.S. from that part of the world.
There really is no good place to do an emergency landing in a commercial airliner.
Great point! Knowing where you want to “crash” is a good idea for EVERY driver, ALL the time.
Not taught in Driver’s Ed but it IS taught in every performance driving and racing school. Know where you can safely run off the track if your brakes fade, a tire goes down, someone cuts you off, ect. Know where the wall is, the tire barrier or the safety worker so you can find or avoid it.
Street driving with ABS allows you to steer away from hitting that other car. Everyone wants to do exactly that. But hitting a concrete barrier, driving into a river, or hitting a kid on a bike might be worse, waaay worse. Always keep an escape route in mind and resolve to hit the car in front of you squarely to minimize the danger and damage.
My Public Service Announcement for the day, return to your regular programming.
Update to my start/stop function issue. Took it to the dealer, they said the problem is the battery sensor. So a sensor is required to tell if there’s a battery???
Usually, it’s single-engine aircraft that need such a back-up plan, not so much with multi-engines, but don’t tell “Sully” Sullenberger and a few hundred thousand other pilots.
Multi-engine planes can normally operate (albeit at a lower altitude) after an engine goes down. It’s rare to lose all engines on a multi-engine plane, but it does happen.
Special precautions should be made when flying single-engine over adverse terrain. Folks crossing the Great Lakes like that should have life jackets (possibly an inflatable boat) and flares.
There are bold pilots and there are old pilots, but no old, bold pilots. CSA
