11 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

Of course. It's not a backup alternator though......Is it?

The Backup Alternator switch is in the Air conditioner panel, first thing you turn on after startup "in Texas".. 🤠👍

15 hours ago, Ron Attwood said:

I know I was less than overwhelmed by it in the beginning. (A reaction to out-of-box hyper-enthusiasm) But the more I fly it the more I like it. I will actually get my moneys worth out of it. 😃

I thought I'd primarily use it as my "old school" plane for VOR (and original RNAV) navigation or VFR pilotage style flying, but I like the plane so much I've also been using it with my TDS gear and enjoying it for that too. It's just so well done in so many ways.

As for the backup alternator - yep, only on the turbo-normalized version with air conditioning. The alternator is there for the air con system but can be switched in as a backup as well. I've been flying mostly in the western US, and with the heat this summer the turbo has been almost a necessity for the high'n'hot airports I've been using. Having a backup alternator is the icing on the turbo cake.

Scott

8 hours ago, Bernard Ducret said:

When you start the engine, do you only select Battery ON?

Yes. It can't cope with anything else being switched on. Once there is 'Brrrm' you can turn stuff on.

1 hour ago, Ron Attwood said:

Yes. It can't cope with anything else being switched on. Once there is 'Brrrm' you can turn stuff on.

In one of my regular senior moment, I thought that you might have forgotten to switch the alternator on after starting the engine and run on battery alone until it dries up, but the battery would never hold that long and allow you to fly, seing how much energy we drain with the start sequence only! So better dump this where it belongs.

The tablet electrical circuits page would have shown you what was amiss eventually... but only after you crash land at Gatwick... As indicated by other posts above, if you were flying the TC, in case of need the number 2 alternator can be linked with the red square button located on the right side of the alternator switch on the console (see tablet where the linkage is shown).

As for the landing gear emergency extension, you already have the answer above, pull and push down the red handle on the side of the console.

Edited August 7Aug 7 by Bernard Ducret

24 minutes ago, Bernard Ducret said:

I thought that you might have forgotten to switch the alternator on after starting the engine and run on battery alone until it dries up, but the battery

You probably ain't as dumb as you look! Perhaps we'll never know. 😂 In fact that is entirely possible. SOLD!

On 8/5/2026 at 3:37 PM, Mace said:

Good, I cooked my virtual self the other day. It shot up to 120+ degF in just a few minutes. I did think that wasn't quite right.

And it would be nice if you could just crack the door(s) to get a bit of airflow as you might do in real life. But right now it's all-or-nothing, if you shut the door (but you can leave the top unlatched, it'll still be "shut" as far as this airplane's current logic is concerned), it will heat up the plane very quickly.

Ha, you reminded me. I did my IRL flight training in 2017, bought a Cherokee 180 and soloed in it. When I flew with my instructor he ALWAYS insisted in keeping the door cracked (since it was on his side) all the way from my hangar to the runway, it wasn't fully closed until we finally taxi'ed onto the runway. Only needed in the height of the summer. 😁

Following the discussion above regarding electrical failure, I wanted to verify a few points such as how long can we run on battery alone, how would the degradation progress happen, and what were the options for recovery. Things that could not really be welcome in RL.

So I started my flight at Salzburg, on the 114TC leaving my alternator OFF, went about the various checks and tasks ignoring the flashing tiny red warning light inviting me to look at the engine monitor.

After the run-up and take-off, having activated flaps down and up, gear up, my battery load on the tablet was reading 73%. Hence more than one fourth of the total load had been eaten up by the initial phase of the flight!

It took 20 minutes of flight to get the battery below 20% and starting to gradually loose my instruments. When reaching 16% I had a blackout. The engine of course was running fine.

After slowing down I used the emergency gear extension which worked by the book in a few seconds.

Finally I tested the 2nd alternator and it came on line instantly giving life to all instruments.

That experiment led me to select « failures ON » in the tablet, really a great job by Nick.

Edited August 8Aug 8 by Bernard Ducret

Well done Bernard. That about sums up my 'issue'. I too have re-enabled failures.

The more I fly this bird the more I fall in love with her, a superb piece of kit.

To add to Ron and Bernard's experience, I generally disable the fault system, but decided to leave it on rate 1x for my "taking her home" trip (12,000 nm from Wiley Post to Tasmania, via the Aleutians, non-GPS). Last night I flew from Juneau to Valdez and I was nearing my destination when I noticed a little red light had come on in my peripheral vision; "Instrument Source - Pump Inop Warning" it said. Ah!

Having watched Nick's promotional videos, I remembered him demonstrating the standby vacuum source. But being in VMC I decided to wait and see. And sure enough, a few minutes later the attitude gyro started to wobble, and then fully tumble. Time to turn on the standby vacuum source for a scud run into Valdez!

Very enjoyable I must say, but I'm a bit peeved about having a 2,000 hour MTBF item fail in a 20 hour old aircraft. Luckily Valdez has a super efficient shop and fixed it in no time, at no cost. I had a couple of other failures already; the courtesy light and the baggage compartment light, both with much lower MTBFs.

On a side note, why is most of the SE Alaska coast covered in snow in the middle of August, with temps well above freezing? Rhetorical 🤔

Edited August 9Aug 9 by gunther

22 hours ago, gunther said:

. Last night I flew from Juneau to Valdez and I was nearing my destination when I noticed a little red light had come on in my peripheral vision; "Instrument Source - Pump Inop Warning" it said. Ah!

I had a partial vac pump failure flying a tour around Tennessee. Maybe 6-7 hours on the plane at the time. I had it fixed at KCHA / Lovell. It was a little dicey using the stby static source, I had to finesse it to keep suction in the green depending on my throttle setting. Not sure if that was due to it being only a partial failure and not a complete pump inop like you had. Luckily the leg was short, from Jasper to Chattanooga at low level winding thru the Tennessee River Gorge.

Edited Monday at 12:29 AM5 days by Mace

duplicate post, can't we delete our own posts anymore?

Edited Monday at 12:31 AM5 days by Mace

32 minutes ago, Mace said:

duplicate post, can't we delete our own posts anymore?

Ve Kontrol all your posts. Ve are zer masters now.

2 hours ago, Mace said:

I had to finesse it to keep suction in the green depending on my throttle setting. Not sure if that was due to it being only a partial failure and not a complete pump inop like you had.

The standby vac works off the engine manifold, and obviously the pressure there will change with your throttle. So yeah, that's a feature 😎. Mine said "Vacuum Pump Partial" as well, but there was no vacuum, so not sure what the difference to a full failure would look like.