Thomas Borchert wrote:

refueling adds an hour
to your trip and the break to stretch your legs helps prevent fatigue on
really long trips.

IF there is an airfield with fuel along the route. Which often isn't the
case.

In my flying experience (admittedly east of the Mississippi is different
than flying out west) it's rare to not be able to reach an airport in
less than 15 minutes from wherever you are in the sky. But, regardless,
I fly a Cherokee Six for anything longer than two hours, which gives me,
conservatively, over five and half hours of gas. Since I don't fly
longer than four hours at a stretch (see above), I always have at least
1.5 hours reserve planned in. Sure that's more conservative than a lot
of people, but it's just not worth it to me to stretch it. An hour out
of my way to refuel is not that big of a deal. Trying to stretch my
range to save an hour, in my mind doesn't get me anything.


Also, consider an airplane with 4 or even 6 fuel tanks, not at all
uncommon. Leaving, say, 5 gallons sloshing around in each robs you of 25
gallons of fuel - which is at least 1.5 hours flying time. That is quite a
lot. In fact, it could be considered a really good reserve. Except for
that, you'd want it all in one tank.

No, I wouldn't. I like having options. The way I fly, if I go for my
max endurance (mine, not the plane's) of four hours, I land with one
tank with 45-60 minutes of fuel and three others with 10-20 minutes
each. Since I'm landing with at least 45 minutes of fuel in the last
tank, the 30-45 minutes in the other three tanks is unnecessary. If I
had a problem with that tank, I have three others to choose from. If
all of my fuel is in one tank, I have no options. Sure, I would have to
really be on my toes in case the tank I switched to runs dry, but that's
better than not even having that option.

Basically, I fly with the attitude that no matter what happens, I will
have another option. In practice that's virtually impossible to do
(what option do you have if a Canadian goose flies through your
windscreen?) but somethings are easy. Fuel is one of the easy ones.

No, I won't go so far as saying that those that run tanks dry as part of
their fuel management system are dumb, but I will say that I feel that
they are taking an unnecessary risk. That's not a personal attack, just
my opinion of the practice. There are a lot of things I do that other
people consider taking unnecessary risks (and therefore a foolish thing
to do), like riding a motorcycle without a helmet. But, it's my choice
to do so.


-m
--
## Mark T. Dame
## VP, Product Development
## MFM Software, Inc. (http://www.mfm.com/)
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