Takeoff with a problem?

"Rocky" wrote in message
om...
This is a loaded question and I suspect most will adamently say they
would not! However, it isn't too hard to come up with a number of
scenarios in which a pilot would take off with known "legal" problems
that are not affecting safety of flight, and some which are mechanical
problems that do affect safe flight in a very personal manner.

Friday evening I got in a rented 172, solo, and the red "high voltage" idiot
light went on. However, I did taxi out, tried a runup, and ran the
appropriate checklist without luck. It was a humid evening, with a slight
possibility of the weather suddenly going IMC, so I went back and squawked
it. Afterwards I wondered if I had maybe split the switch (most unlikely; I
never do that on a routine basis and I had cycled the switch twice). I also
asked myself whether I would have departed if I had "jiggled" the alternator
side and that had turned the red light off - I think not. The mission was
just for fun and currency, easy to cancel, and I definitely wouldn't have
taken passengers at night with a questionable electrical system. BTDT.

Next day they couldn't reproduce the fault, flew the plane without problem,
but decided not to bill me for night taxi practice, and that evening I tried
again, same plane. It was a dry night and quiet in the air, so very little
danger even if it fritzed, which it didn't of course.

I didn't log it as 0.3 pilot time, although I could be persuaded that the
experience does fall into the Commercial areas of operation requirement.

Comments: excess of caution on day 1, foolhardy on day 2?

-- David Brooks