On 2005-08-19, Michael wrote:
Are your gauges accurate enough to reliably tell the difference between
30 minutes fuel at 60% power and empty in tyubulent air?
Will your fuel computer account for fuel that leaves via a cap that has
developed a leak?

I think this is why it is important to have fuel gauges that are at
least useful, and give a reasonable indication of how much fuel is left
- so you can tell if there's less fuel in the tank than you expected
there to be. It can alert you to a problem. The first time I took a
Cessna 182 (the 1960 model, which didn't have overly capacious fuel
tanks to start with) for a long cross country, I landed short of my
destination because the fuel gauges showed that I had less fuel than my
time/fuel burn calculation said I had. The fuel gauge was right - I did
have less fuel than I expected. Reasonably working fuel gauges can alert
you to fuel leaks, missing fuel caps and other sources of having less
fuel than you expected to have.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"