The pilot of an amphibious C185 returned to his departure airport after suffering an apparent altern...

Attributes
ACN	967291
Time
Date	201108
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.TRACON
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Skywagon 185
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	IFR
Component
Aircraft Component	AC Generation
Person 1
Function	Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Sea Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP) Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Flight Instructor Flight Crew Glider Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Rotorcraft
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 40 Flight Crew Total 4300 Flight Crew Type 350
Events
Anomaly	Aircraft Equipment Problem Critical Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Procedural Clearance

Narrative:

I was climbing my amphibious C185 and had been transferred from the tower to approach. I tried to raise the landing gear and it took much longer than normal. The main gear came up; but the bow wheels did not. I then extended the gear. They all extended. I then tried to raise them again. They all came up but it took 3 times longer than normal and the sequence was off. I then got an alert from the garmin 600 that it had detected low voltage. The ammeter was now discharging. My thought was that I had an alternator failure. I called approach and asked to return to my departure airport. They asked if I had a problem and if I needed further assistance. I told them that I had an electrical failure and that I was trying to deal with it. They cleared me to return to and to maintain 3;000 MSL. I turned back to the airport. At this point I was focused on trying to not make my situation worse. I wanted to get rid of high power users. I turned off the autopilot. I then lowered the landing gear. I wanted to get it down and locked before there was too little power. This created a lot of drag. I noticed that I had descended below 3;000. I was trying to correct this when approach called and told me the same thing. I asked to cancel IFR and requested flight following so that I could concentrate on the electrical failure and not maintaining a fixed altitude.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: The pilot of an amphibious C185 returned to his departure airport after suffering an apparent alternator failure.

Narrative: I was climbing my amphibious C185 and had been transferred from the Tower to Approach. I tried to raise the landing gear and it took much longer than normal. The main gear came up; but the bow wheels did not. I then extended the gear. They all extended. I then tried to raise them again. They all came up but it took 3 times longer than normal and the sequence was off. I then got an alert from the Garmin 600 that it had detected low voltage. The ammeter was now discharging. My thought was that I had an alternator failure. I called Approach and asked to return to my departure airport. They asked if I had a problem and if I needed further assistance. I told them that I had an electrical failure and that I was trying to deal with it. They cleared me to return to and to maintain 3;000 MSL. I turned back to the airport. At this point I was focused on trying to not make my situation worse. I wanted to get rid of high power users. I turned off the autopilot. I then lowered the landing gear. I wanted to get it down and locked before there was too little power. This created a lot of drag. I noticed that I had descended below 3;000. I was trying to correct this when Approach called and told me the same thing. I asked to cancel IFR and requested flight following so that I could concentrate on the electrical failure and not maintaining a fixed altitude.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.