Generators and alternators are among the least reliable components in any electrical system, so it was obvious that they wanted more than one. In some airplanes, such as the two-seat Cessna 120, the electrical system was an option.Īs reliable electrical power became more essential, airplane designers and pilots focused mostly on multiple charging sources. Pilots propped the engine by hand to start it a battery powered the navigation lights, if there were any and mechanical energy powered everything else necessary for flight. In decades past, many thousands of light airplanes had no electrical system at all. The electrical system wasn’t always so important.
In other words, you could glide to a forced landing if all engine power were lost, but without reliable power to fundamental flight instruments, it would be impossible to maintain control without visual reference, and that almost always ends in a fatal crash.
Maintaining a constant flow of power after some elements of the electrical system fail is the only way a pilot can maintain control of the airplane in clouds or low visibility. Some airplanes still use vacuum pumps to power a backup attitude gyro, but increasingly even the backup instruments are powered by electricity. Look at a new “glass” cockpit and it’s easy to see why we are so dependent on electrical power. Pilots who are willing to fly in the clouds with only one engine demand backups and redundancy for the critical avionics and other systems powered by electricity. The level of sophistication of the electrical system in singles tells you just how important electricity is for safe flight.
But there is still only one engine, and if it quits, the airplane is not going to continue flying for long. Most current production singles have multiple electrical buses, more than one electrical power source and, often, emergency backup batteries. I sometimes chuckle when I think about the complexity of the electrical systems in new airplanes, particularly single-engine airplanes.
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