Day 40, Panama City and Jacksonville, FL.

Hey all, Today I was assigned to fly another student to Madison County, Alabama for his commercial ceckride. So I have plenty of time today to update and relax from two long days of flying. Yesterday I flew down to Panama City, FL. again with Tim and half way down we got an alternator annunciator light on the panel. Looking at the amp gauges it looked like possibly the left alternator was out since it was carrying any of the load. I started to increase the electrical load by turning on the nav lights and the landing light as well as both electric fuel pumps. Nothing was happening to the left gauge but the right alternator was definitely carrying an increased load so I shut off all the lights and the pumps I had turned on to get the load back to around 20 amps. Once we landed in Panama City, I reported the issue to dispatch and they asked if we felt comfortable flying the plane east to Jacksonville for maintenance where we'd pick up another bird to fly home for the day. I agreed since the worst that was going to happen was a complete loss of electrical power. The skies were crystal clear so I'd be able to find my way using visual ground references to Jacksonville in case I did lose all electrical power. Hollywood would have you believe that if a plane loses electrical power, the small piston aircraft will fall out of the sky like a rock and crash because you've lost all power and the laws of physics that govern aerodynamics all of the sudden cease to exist when aircraft lose their engines. There are two very bad assumptions here. FIRST when a smaller general aviation piston aircraft, like the Seminole I'm flying, looses electrical power the engines do not die on you. The engines are driven by magnetos which keep the spark plugs in line and igniting the fuel as it enters the cylinders. The fuel is pumped into the engine from the tanks by engine driven pumps. So no electrical power is required to keep the engines running once they've been started. SECOND if your engine/s do die, aircraft (depending on their specific coefficient of lift) can continue to glide down to the earth at decent distances. The farther up you are with no engines the better glide range you'll have to land at an airport near you. Another common misconception is that there are only so may airports in the U.S. like the major international ones we all know about. when in fact there are MANY MANY airports strewn about the country. A loss of electrical power on my trip to Jacksonville would have meant I would have lost my GPS, Lights, Radios, Turn Coordinator, Navigation equipment like VOR's. But I would have still had Airspeed Indicator, Attitude Indicator, Altimeter, Vertical Speed Indicator, and Heading Indicator, and I would have had to use the emergency extension on my landing gear since the hydraulic gear pump is electric. So the only big thing I would have lost was my communications since I was filed on an IFR flight plan. I was in VFR conditions so I could travel east bound to the coast and find Jacksonville and then look for light gun signals from the control tower for clearance to land. Fortunately none of that was needed but I guess it's good to know I was prepared for the worst, and if it happened I could maintain control of the situation. Once at Jacksonville we picked up another Seminole and flew home. Here are some photos from the trip!