"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" wrote in message
. com...
Matt Barrow wrote:
AVweb's John Deakin takes aim at yet another OWT (Old Wive's Tale). While
running a fuel tank dry in your recip powered plane may serve to increase
your heart rate, John explains why it's not such a bad thing at all, and
it
is probably a really good idea for most of us. In fact, John explains why
it's one of the first things you ought to do with a new plane and how it
could save your life someday.


Flying the old Cherokee Six with four fuel tanks, you'd end up with almost
10 gallons unusable if you didn't run a tank dry occasionally. I tried to
never let it happen with passengers on board. Screwed up once though...
probably scared the hell out of them though nobody said anything about it
once I'd explained what had happened. Mea culpa.


--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN

I remember one time in a light twin. I decided to run the auxilliary tanks
dry before returning to the mains so that I would have all of my remaining
fuel in the mains for the approach and landing. I flew an hour on the mains
to get some dump space for the overflow from the injectors and then switched
to the aux tanks. After churning along on the auxs for some little time the
right engine quit. As I was reaching for the fuel selector to switch it
back to the main the left engine quit. The sudden total cessation of engine
noise in midtrip got my passengers rather upset until I got them both making
appropriate noises again and explained to them what had happened and why I
did it that way. :-) Mea Maxima Culpa ...

Highflyer
Highflight Aviation Services
Pinckneyville Airport ( PJY )



VE