Had an interesting flight experience last night in the 172B I have access to fly. Flying home from 06C Schaumburg after dinner about 15 min into a 60 min flight we had the generator fail. The fuse was blazing hot, and I removed it but dropped it out of reflex, not that I planned on putting a new one back in. We felt there was not much we could trouble shoot or isolate because of how the system was designed and figured with the fuse out we were safe and just keep going. I went back and forth on do we divert to JVL, C29, etc. but we felt it was best at this point to keep pressing on and keep an eye on things.
We were already on Flight Following (because I always am when flying VFR) and let Rockford Approach know that we had generator failure and flying under battery power. We did this to let them know if we dropped radio and transponder. They were so helpful, they called MSN and let them know the situation and told us to expect right base to runway 14.
We had turned off most lights, 2nd radio, etc. to save battery but I also knew the battery was brand new so we should have it a long time, but 45 min, did not know. I kept radio transmissions short but was too quick on the calls after triggering the mic. so, lesson learned there.
Arriving at MSN Approach first said to expect right base for 14, but as we got within 5 miles, they started to vector us and then switched us to left base for 14 to allow an Arrow to do a practice approach with circle to land adding 5min or so to our flight. This was frustrating to me as while not a declared emergency they knew we had limited battery.
Battery lasted the entire time, and we landed and parked without issue. Even the landing light was nice and bright.
Since I cant to long form here, I took a screenshot of the flight from last night.
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