Robert M. Gary wrote:

that is pilot error. You should be able to find that leak - 100LL leaves
stains. If it was so slow not to notice, then it should be slow enough not
to matter in a flight. There are few fuel problems that are not pilot
error.


The engine could have been burning too much too. I once rented a 182
topped it will full tanks and flew from Sacramento to Santa Barbara
(about 2.5 hours).

Yep, ain't no way you're going to see a fuel leak on my plane. The
plane itself is blue and you can't see the drains in flight (low wing).

A few years ago coming out of annual, we fired up the plane, shut it down
checked under the cowl. Took it out, test flew it, opened it up and
looked problems. The next morning, we departed for Oshkosh. The
fuel consumption was staggering (I computed afterwards it was about
60 gal per hours). We landed and found a rather severe leak from
the fitting going into the engine driven fuel pump. Fuel evaporates
pretty quickly, so you couldn't see any indication of it once the
engine was stopped.

We had a group participant here put his Cardinal down off airport
after a carb problem caused much higher than expected fuel burns.