On Apr 4, 4:02*pm, William Hung wrote:
On Apr 4, 10:53*am, Gene Seibel wrote:

Took off on a night flight in the Cherokee last November. I
incorrectly remembered how much fuel I'd used on the previous flight
by 20 minutes. I planned for what I believed to be a 45 minute
reserve. Headwinds increased sooner along my path than I expected. By
the time I reached my destination, the reserve had dwindled to what I
believed was 30 minutes. I clicked my mic 5 times to turn on runway
lights and they did not come on. Turns out this airport took 7 clicks
to turn on. I'd heard of taking 7 for a certain intensity, but in my
30 years had never run into one that took 7 clicks to turn on. Had I
stayed in the area, I'd have probably tried that next, but I knew
there was another airport 12 minutes away whose lights stayed on, so I
headed for it. Unfortunately the 30 minutes of fuel I thought I had
was only 10.

You were very lucky. *Thanks for sharing.

I know that I am very fortunate to be able to tell this story. It's
mind boggling to think about the number of ways this could have gone
very, very bad.
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.