Ed, could you please go into this a bit more? I'd like to understand why this was a stressful event for you. I have not had this kind of failure and would like to learn from your experience.
What were the stress factors? Good question…
* Startle factor. It’s real.
* Possibility of an electrical fire, and the need for a precautionary off-airport no-flap landing. I practice no-flap landings in the RV-9A, so I know what they’re like.
* The realization that if I did an approach to an enroute airport, got low, put down full flaps for landing and the airport was at the last moment unsuitable, I might really have my hands full, so better to stay at altitude.
* Remembering how much of a pain it was to set power with no engine instruments and a constant speed prop during an improvised instrument approach after a simulated full electrical failure. Again, practice let me make better decisions in this situation.
* Keeping ATC informed when I was about to disappear from radar.
* Possible consequences of continuing the flight with no transponder and especially with no ADS-B out. The FAA has draconian rules about flying without ADS-B out, and not many know about those.
* Age. I’m 73, somehow, and get rattled more easily. Stick and rudder skills are still up to par, SA and knowledge are good, but starting to see mild cognitive decline around the edges in things like multi-tasking, distractions, and fixation.
The first thousand hours or so in my logbook document flights before GPS and without LORAN-C. It was paper chart and pilotage, including multiple trips well over a thousand miles, not a big deal when you have the luxury of doing the flight planning on the ground. It wasn’t just me, everybody did it, and all student pilots learned pilotage. My 800 tailwheel hours include a bunch of time in my own RV-8, including coast to coast when I bought it. No flap landings were easy in the -8. There was a bunch of time in 65 HP taildraggers. All of which is to say that I’m completely unimpressed with tailwheel types who boast about how they can fly without GPS when they’ve done all the flight planning before takeoff. Apples to cow pies. Male cow pies.