This may seem like a stupid question but I am genuinely curious...
I was conducting some survey work in the vicinity of Winnipeg MB yesterday (lucky, I know). Most of my work was back and forth through the departure path of Winnipeg Intl's traffic.
About two hours in, my entire radio stack went dark. I don't think it was the alternator, because all of my survey equipment was still on and I was getting a charge from my ammeter (I've had 2 alternator failures in my plane this season and yesterday showed none of those symptoms).
When this happened, I cursed a couple times, then immediately got out of the way of the departure path. I descended a little bit to see if I could get a cell signal to maybe call Winnipeg tower, with no luck. I tried to recycle the avionics, but the switch that doubles as the breaker for the system was not only hot, but when I flipped it on, it would automatically go back into the OFF position, so that wasn't happening at the moment.
I proceeded to circle for about 10 minutes while monitoring any traffic and gave my system time to cool off. Part of my trouble shooting was turning off my survey stuff as that may have created too much stress on the system. As soon as the failure happened I squawked 7600, however, like everything else, the transponder appeared off.
After about 10 minutes I tried the radios again, and they worked, albeit not well. I was able to contact terminal, who told Tower to get the light gun ready. I landed, and somehow the radios stayed functional down to the ground, which was a relief. With that in mind, I asked this:
Lost Comms seemed to be touched upon assuming you only lost your radios. They mention listening on VORs, contacting ARINCs, squawking of course etc, but I have yet to see what one should do if they lose everything.
Can ATC tell or at least infer that I have run into this issue? Will my data block automatically indicate a NORDO situation? I'm curious because I'm not sure how long it would take for me to trust Tower knew I was in trouble if I didn't get my radios back.
I was conducting some survey work in the vicinity of Winnipeg MB yesterday (lucky, I know). Most of my work was back and forth through the departure path of Winnipeg Intl's traffic.
About two hours in, my entire radio stack went dark. I don't think it was the alternator, because all of my survey equipment was still on and I was getting a charge from my ammeter (I've had 2 alternator failures in my plane this season and yesterday showed none of those symptoms).
When this happened, I cursed a couple times, then immediately got out of the way of the departure path. I descended a little bit to see if I could get a cell signal to maybe call Winnipeg tower, with no luck. I tried to recycle the avionics, but the switch that doubles as the breaker for the system was not only hot, but when I flipped it on, it would automatically go back into the OFF position, so that wasn't happening at the moment.
I proceeded to circle for about 10 minutes while monitoring any traffic and gave my system time to cool off. Part of my trouble shooting was turning off my survey stuff as that may have created too much stress on the system. As soon as the failure happened I squawked 7600, however, like everything else, the transponder appeared off.
After about 10 minutes I tried the radios again, and they worked, albeit not well. I was able to contact terminal, who told Tower to get the light gun ready. I landed, and somehow the radios stayed functional down to the ground, which was a relief. With that in mind, I asked this:
Lost Comms seemed to be touched upon assuming you only lost your radios. They mention listening on VORs, contacting ARINCs, squawking of course etc, but I have yet to see what one should do if they lose everything.
Can ATC tell or at least infer that I have run into this issue? Will my data block automatically indicate a NORDO situation? I'm curious because I'm not sure how long it would take for me to trust Tower knew I was in trouble if I didn't get my radios back.
