Where do you draw the line on when to declare an emergency?

First off aircraft dont have altenators. Turbine engines have generators and piston engines have magnetos so theres that. Radio going in and out and you cant contact tower or atc effectively punch in 7600. Thats basic flying knowledge. Emergency is when you either have a medical incident on the aircraft or something has failed that prevents you from staying airborne. The line is different for each person. For failed equipment that wont stop you from landing at an airfield safely you can call a pan instead of a mayday or simply let the controller know whats up and that youre monitoring the situation.

Engine failure is an emergency, only time ive seen it called is for an engine that failed during climb out but was able to restart. They declared and returned to the field. Due to pilot error i once almost made a landinf on I80 when i came out of a slip and applied power and nothing happened. Ran my checklist for engine failure and found that I had not turned the fuel selector to both when we took off because we failed to follow the checklist and just assumed it was done.

If the engine wont restart, you have major icing, landing gear inop, furl leaking, or something else that stops you from making a safe procedural landing then call an emergency. If one of your magnetos fails in flight and youre running on just the one id tell tower that you have failed equipment and while you can maintain flight that you request priority landing. Typically they will help you out.

Be smart about it. At the end of the day if you legitimately feel like its an emergency then declare it. It's your call as pilot in command. Just dont be "Rogaa" guy.

/r/flying Thread