Had that happen to me once, but not in my D?<ul>I was flying a Piper Tri-Pacer (small 4-place aircraft) I co-owned with my best friend over the local city at night (taking in the WAY COOL nighttime view with my girlfriend, him and his wife) and suddenly ALL the lights went out (talk about your pucker power!! :bugeyed
Thankfully small aircraft engines run off a mechanically driven magneto not the alternator (which only powers the accessories like lights, radios, etc.) so the engine keep right on going.
I used the flashlight we always kept in our on-board emergency kit to charge up the "glow-in-the-dark" gauge faces and found the voltmeter was pegged out at max and we realized we weren't gonna get the lights back on because the bulbs had all blown out! With our NAV lights out and a fairly busy metro airport nearby, we hightailed it back to the small strip we operated out of and put down (VERY interesting landing with no landing lights - the strip looked like a huge, deep, black trench outlined with runway lights.)
Turned out the brushes in our alternator were just about shot.
And yes, among my many other talents, I've been a licensed private pilot since 1976 (single-engine land.) Just haven't flown in "many" years because it got WAY too expensive (upwards of $50/hr to rent a small Cessna/Piper! :wall
[/list]Ok, enough reminiscing about my misspent youth and back on topic?
x4 on cleaning all the battery/alternator/ground connections.
