"Mark T. Dame" wrote in message
...
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.

....
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.


Is this thread (and Mr. Deakin) forgetting that almost no accident is the
result of any single issue?

Running a tank dry by itself is not likely to be fatal, as many in this
thread have so vigorously pointed out quite rightly.

But if it gets coupled with some other condition, the restart may not be
that automatic. Since running a tank dry in the air is optional, why add an
item purposely to a possible chain that may already be there inadvertently?

So if you are *absolutely* sure that no other impediment to a restart
exists, go ahead and run the tank dry. Obviously, in the overwhelming
number of cases, no such impediment will exist and the world will proceed as
it should.

How sure am I that *this* time, that is still the case?

I think that I am with Jay on this one.