Narrative:

Flying VFR; I noticed a faint alternator out light illuminate. I pulled the bonanza's afm and went through the procedure for this event. As stated in the manual; no discharge was noted at this time and nothing unusual was observed. I did; however; turn off all unnecessary electrical equipment and also; after several minutes of flight; noticed the light went out and still no problem with the beech load meter. The light came on intermittently once or twice again during the next 30 minutes of flight and seemed to have no discharge problem. About 20 miles north of ZZZ we lost electrical power and were only able to use an airliner to relay our situation to ZZZ1 approach. The carrier flight was able to get us to communicate with ZZZ approach and we also; previously; had plugged 7600 into our garmin transponder; not knowing if it was operable or not. ZZZ1 had us switch over to ZZZ tower and we advised that we needed to manually extend the bonanza's landing gear. We did so north and above their class D and the tower advised they could see our 3 gear down and cleared us to land from a right base entry to runway 29. The final 5 minutes of flight we had no electrical power and made an uneventful no-flap landing. We taxied to the ramp following a 'follow me' truck to park and shut down. Postflight revealed no apparent leaks or troubles with the alternator. Today; the owner of the aircraft called to advise the problem was a faulty field wire to the alternator causing it to short out. It was very helpful to have had airlines; ZZZ1 approach and ZZZ tower work together so well bringing our situation to a safe conclusion.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: BE33 pilot reports alternator failure during a VFR cross country flight. Flight ends well with the aid of ATC and an airline crew.

Narrative: Flying VFR; I noticed a faint alternator out light illuminate. I pulled the Bonanza's AFM and went through the procedure for this event. As stated in the manual; no discharge was noted at this time and nothing unusual was observed. I did; however; turn off all unnecessary electrical equipment and also; after several minutes of flight; noticed the light went out and still no problem with the Beech load meter. The light came on intermittently once or twice again during the next 30 minutes of flight and seemed to have no discharge problem. About 20 miles north of ZZZ we lost electrical power and were only able to use an airliner to relay our situation to ZZZ1 Approach. The carrier flight was able to get us to communicate with ZZZ Approach and we also; previously; had plugged 7600 into our Garmin transponder; not knowing if it was operable or not. ZZZ1 had us switch over to ZZZ Tower and we advised that we needed to manually extend the Bonanza's landing gear. We did so north and above their Class D and the Tower advised they could see our 3 gear down and cleared us to land from a right base entry to Runway 29. The final 5 minutes of flight we had no electrical power and made an uneventful no-flap landing. We taxied to the ramp following a 'follow me' truck to park and shut down. Postflight revealed no apparent leaks or troubles with the alternator. Today; the owner of the aircraft called to advise the problem was a faulty field wire to the alternator causing it to short out. It was very helpful to have had airlines; ZZZ1 Approach and ZZZ Tower work together so well bringing our situation to a safe conclusion.

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.