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Date: Sun, 01 May 2005 23:58:52 -0600
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
From: "BillDube@killacycle.com" <billdube@killacycle.com>
Subject: Re: [FlyRotary] Re: Circuit breakers
In-Reply-To: <list-921863@logan.com>
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At 10:39 PM 5/1/2005, you wrote:
>I seem to be the only one that hasn't spoken up "yet" on this 
>subject.  From where I sit in my (commercial airline) seat, I can count 
>over a hundred CB's, but there is not a fuse to be seen.  I think these 
>guys did their homework, or the feds wouldn't have approved them for the 
>last 40 or 50 years.

         I agree fully. I suspect the prime motivation for the folks that 
choose fuses is cost, not safety.

         I've reset the breaker on the landing gear (Piper Archer) that 
tripped because of an intermittent short in the switch wiring. Easy to 
determine that it indeed tripped. Easy to locate the tripped CB. Easy to 
reset in flight. No big deal. If there had been a fuse instead of a 
breaker, I probably would have had to declare an emergency, pump the gear 
down manually, and had someone visually confirm the gear were down.

         I have had a couple of lighting fuses blow on an old Cessna 150 at 
night. Even with a pilot in the right seat to help, we were unable to 
figure out which fuse(s) had blown and how to replace them. I landed the 
plane with a flashlight in my mouth to read the instrument panel and no 
landing light. Luckily, the stack stayed live so I could click up the 
runway lights.

         Another nice feature of a CB is that you can easily pull one (or 
more) if you smell smoke or have some other sort of electrical problem.
Bill Dube <LED@Killacycle.com>
http://www.killacycle.com/Lights.htm