On Oct 5, 7:47 am, es330td wrote:
Sorry if this is dumb (I am only at 8.3 hours toward my PPL)...

In the email I got from AOPA ePilot training tips today there is a
discussion of fuel starvation that makes regular mention of the fuel
selector switch. All my flying is done in a CE172 and the first and
last time I worry about the switch is during pre-flight when I confirm
that it is on both. I fly on both and never fly any other way and to
be honest, outside of gravity flow issues when parked on an incline I
cannot think of why one would want to select one tank at a time vs
both.

If you are running on "BOTH" and there is an obstruction in a fuel
line, fuel could feed only from the other tank and you might find
yourself with fuel starvation long before you expect it. Changing
between left and right on a regular basis may let you discover such a
problem before it's an emergency. A close watch on fuel gauges and
being sensitive to heavy wing helps too.
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.