Holy cow. What GA plane has that kind of a useful load?

A plane that has the GPS ripped out of it, along with the fuel
totalizer, the autopilot, the dual vacuum pumps, the auxilliary
electrical system, the third nav/com, the second nav/com, the DME, the
radar pod, and the sferics unit. Once you pull that stuff out of the
panel, you can carry some payload.

As a matter of routine, though,
our average flight is into a...

Well, not everyone flies your average flight, so not everyone will use
(or require) the same flying technique. This includes fuel management.
I can certainly understand the benefit of, indeed the -need- of,
deliberately running a tank dry under known and ontrolled conditions
during a flight - a four or six tank airplane which is flown to leave
half an hour in each tank isn't going to fly very far. OTOH, I fly a
two tank airplane near sea level, and I prefer to have some fuel in the
other tank at all times.

Neither method is a priori "dumb". It may well be dumb for =you=, with
the kind of flying =you= do, and the kind of plane =you= own, and the
kind of experience =you= have. But not everyone is Jay. Not everyone
=should= be Jay. Not everyone should =fly= like Jay.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
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