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Date: Fri, 04 Dec 1998 17:46:57 -0600
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R. Mehler wrote:

> This brings up a tangental question: how common are in-flight 
> electrical failures in ratty old general aviation rental aircraft?

I have no idea overall.  A couple of data points:

A friend who has his own plane, 1 failure in 250 hrs

A friend who has always rented aircraft, 4 failures in 350 hrs
or about 90 hrs between failures.

In rental aircraft, my husband had one failure in his first 70 hrs,
no further failures for another 100 hrs renting aircraft from a 
different FBO.

So I suspect how the aircraft is maintained has more to do with it
than anything -- are strange electrical symptoms diagnosed and
fixed promptly and correctly, or are things let go until they
completely fail.

They're common enough that I wouldn't fly IMC in a GA aircraft
without having a Real Good Plan (tm) about how to navigate when 
the electrical system dies entirely (communicate would be nice
too).

Snowbird

