caution with handhelds

[randypugh]

Maybe you are all aware of this already but it caught me by suprise. I had a trip from Michigan to Knoxville Tenn. today and a freind of mine wanted to take his Garmin 696 along and compare it to my GMX200. I don't like portables because of all the cables, wires, and brackets ect... so I just watched as he clamped this thing on the yoke colume on the passenger side. It was running on it's own battery power. During my runnup I noticed a flash and a hiss sound. We talked about it but couldn't see anything. Then I smelled somthing hot. I shut off all power and taxied back to the hangar and shut down thinking I had a big problem. While he went to get another airplane for the trip I felt under the panel hopeing to find a loose wire. Instead I found a hot cigaret lighter. The clamp on his 696 was holding the lighter in, not letting it pop out. If we were flying it would have not been an issue because the yoke is pulled out away from the pannel, but on the ground we could have had a fire. Use caution when hooking these things up. We were just about to launch into 2 hours of solid IMC. We packed up his 696 and had a great flight down and back without it, in my Mooney of course. 

[Buster1]

Great story and a good piece of advice.

I HATE wires too.  Have all my home theater pretty well wired up safely and coiled neatly.  All those wires in the cockpit drive me nuts too.  That's why someday, panel mounting a 696 (or something like it) will be how I roll!

[Jeff_S]

Interesting, although I would bet most folks would actually use the power adapter and plug the 696 into the cig lighter since it only lasts a couple hours on battery.  That would of course solve the problem.

[flight2000]

My cigarette lighter is long gone.  Not sure why you would still need the actual lighter portion in the cockpit as I thought all domestic flights were non-smoking now...

When I'm not using it to power something, I have a plastic dust cover on it to keep foreign debris from getting in it.  Got it at a local auto parts store for $1.50.

Brian

[Guest Anonymous]

Another side to this little incident.... If you had actually had a fire, or some burned wiring, your insurance company would have denied any claim, and would have walked in any court case. They would have cited the FAR regarding the Pilot-on-Command's assumption of responsibility for portable devices.

Moral to the story ... be very wary of letting others plug portable stuff into your aircraft systems, and insist of being aware of and involved with the use of ANY portable device.

RFB

[danb35]

Any example of an insurance claim that was denied on this basis, or is this just fear-mongering?

[Guest Anonymous]

Quote: danb35

Any example of an insurance claim that was denied on this basis, or is this just fear-mongering?