Turbo Mcfloat
Well-Known Member
I had something happen the other day that caused me to make an unscheduled landing. It doesn't quite add up to me so looking for some insight.
I was doing a crosscountry with my student and we smelled smoke. I didn't think too much about it at first cause I always smell something rank in that old 152. A couple minutes later the radios went dead and all we could hear on the intercom was loud static (couldn't talk to each other). Look down to see the alternator circuit breaker popped. My first thought was that there was a fire, though I never saw fire or smoke, just smelled it. We landed at an airport that we were directly over at the time to check it out. Stuck my nose in the front of the engine compartment and that's where the smell was coming from.
To sum up the rest, the airplane won't start now and a mechanic came out and replaced the starter and alternator. The burning smell was definitely from the starter and I'm pretty sure the alternator was fine as it was brand new as of two days prior.
My guess of what happened is that the starter was somehow overloading the alternator and that's what caused the breaker to pop. Maybe it was stuck engaged after we took off?
Why did the radios and intercom system fail? Battery was perfectly fine and started the airplane up with no problem after the starter was replaced. I'm thinking that the starter was drawing so much load that the alternator and battery couldn't keep up.
Afterwards one of the fuel gauges was reading full and we had below half tanks, my headset jacks/PTT don't work, and were both good beforehand.
That was a dreadful 7 hours at 1Q4
I was doing a crosscountry with my student and we smelled smoke. I didn't think too much about it at first cause I always smell something rank in that old 152. A couple minutes later the radios went dead and all we could hear on the intercom was loud static (couldn't talk to each other). Look down to see the alternator circuit breaker popped. My first thought was that there was a fire, though I never saw fire or smoke, just smelled it. We landed at an airport that we were directly over at the time to check it out. Stuck my nose in the front of the engine compartment and that's where the smell was coming from.
To sum up the rest, the airplane won't start now and a mechanic came out and replaced the starter and alternator. The burning smell was definitely from the starter and I'm pretty sure the alternator was fine as it was brand new as of two days prior.
My guess of what happened is that the starter was somehow overloading the alternator and that's what caused the breaker to pop. Maybe it was stuck engaged after we took off?
Why did the radios and intercom system fail? Battery was perfectly fine and started the airplane up with no problem after the starter was replaced. I'm thinking that the starter was drawing so much load that the alternator and battery couldn't keep up.
Afterwards one of the fuel gauges was reading full and we had below half tanks, my headset jacks/PTT don't work, and were both good beforehand.
That was a dreadful 7 hours at 1Q4
