It was a clear, blue-sky day for my first cross-country solo flight, an easy 54-mile jaunt from Manassas to Charlottesville, Virginia. While piloting a well-worn Cessna 152 above some of the nation’s most pastoral countryside and highest-priced horse country—Hollywood stars Christopher Reeve and Sissy Spacek both had homes somewhere below—I made my initial call to the Charlottesville Tower. At least, I tried.
“Charlottesville Tower, Cessna Three-Five-Seven-Delta-Juliet is 10 miles to the northeast, inbound for….”
Pop! There went the radio circuit breaker. I followed the procedure I’d been taught and reset the breaker. The radio revived and I could hear the tower chatter. I transmitted again, “Charlottesville Tower, Cessna Three-Five-Seven-Delta-Juliet, eight miles to…” Pop!
Since it was evident that my transmitting was blowing the breaker, I reset it one more time and listened only. Being a novice I couldn’t remember the transponder code for radio failure, but I stayed off the microphone and the tower crew obviously saw me coming. They must have figured out what was happening as they radioed to me, “Cessna Three-Five-Seven-Delta-Juliet, enter the pattern, cleared to land.”
Once on the ground in Charlottesville I pondered my options. Could I fly back to Manassas without a radio? As a very low-time pilot, it seemed better all around to call for a couple instructors from the FBO to make the quick flight down in another FBO airplane and have one of them fly back with me.
I learned a few lessons that day. The first was how valuable carrying a handheld transceiver can be in the case of radio failure. I realized the significant additional level of safety there is in being able to call your position and use your ears to locate traffic, instead of just your eyes. It also gives you many more options for destinations to land.
The second lesson was to learn the airspace requirements regarding communications. At nontowered airports you don’t need a radio to land, although it’s a good idea; there can be a lot of traffic at those rural airfields. At towered airports (Class B, C, and D) you must have radio communications, but since Class D airports tend to be smaller you might be allowed to telephone the tower, set an arrival time, and use light-gun signals for operations. That will depend on the controllers’ workload. Don’t even think about approaching a Class C or B airport without a radio unless it’s a true emergency and you’re prepared for lots of questions and paperwork from the FAA.
After that flight I thoroughly studied my aircraft’s electrical system. When you’re a student pilot, flying aging flight-school airplanes—many of which have had more hard knocks than a country singer—you better put your nose in the pilot’s operating handbook and develop a mental picture of your electrical system.
Finally, 7600, the transponder code for radio failure, is now tattooed on my brain and noted on my pilot’s kneeboard.
In recent years the opinion on popped circuit breakers has changed. When I had my fateful flight in the early 1990s the rule was to push in a circuit breaker once after it pops. I don’t know if those 1960s-vintage circuit breakers had a tendency to pop for unknown reasons, or during transient fluctuations in the power system, but it seems that pilots then didn’t always trust a circuit breaker to indicate a serious electrical problem with the device it protects.
Circuit breakers on recently built aircraft are considered to be far more reliable, and a pilot who encounters a popped circuit breaker should deem that piece of equipment out of play. The primary fear is that resetting a circuit breaker may overload the electrical system and start a fire. The FAA “reiterates its concern about resetting circuit breakers during flight. Crewmembers may create a potentially hazardous situation if they reset a circuit breaker without knowing what caused it to trip,” states Advisory Circular 120-80a.
Student pilots are taught to check all circuit breakers during their preflight, but none of my instructors really taught me what to do if I found a tripped breaker. It seemed that we were just ensuring that they were all in the closed position at the start of a flight. Now the emphasis is to determine before you take off why a circuit breaker was found to be tripped. If a pilot encounters this during a preflight, he should check the FBO for a squawk from a previous pilot and review the maintenance records. If no documentation is found, he should write up a squawk on the aircraft and, if possible, find another aircraft to fly. Certainly, do not reset that breaker for a flight.
On my radio-popping flight I went a step further from the wisdom of the time when I reset the breaker twice, but it was so obvious that my transmitting was overloading the breaker that I felt safe resetting it only to listen. Also, I was less than five miles from the airport and would be on the ground in just a few minutes. If I’d been cruising over mountains an hour from a viable landing spot I wouldn’t have reset the breaker until I was near an airport, if at all. It’s probably better to approach an airport without a radio than risk a fire; of course, if you’re without a radio you should carefully choose the airport to approach.
The FAA has a multitude of rules and recommendations for larger aircraft concerning when to reset a circuit breaker, taking into account such factors as the conditions of flight and whether the equipment is deemed essential or nonessential. Consider all the factors of your flight, your aircraft, and your resources. If you don’t need a piece of equipment for flight safety, leave the breaker alone and land in a reasonable time. If it’s needed to continue your flight safely, carefully consider resetting the breaker and/or changing your flight plan—but always be wary of the hazards of popping breakers.
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