On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 09:29:20 -0700 (PDT), Gene Seibel
wrote:

On Apr 4, 1:55*pm, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com
wrote:
Gene Seibel wrote:
This forum should be a good place to share experiences, but with the
tendency to pile on people that make mistakes, I've been hesitant to
share my recent fuel exhaustion experience. Well, I'll go ahead and be
the group's "Idiot".

There's those who have and those that will. *Folks want to stay in the latter
group as long as possible. *To those who insist they could never make that same
mistake, I just shake my head. *Usually it's a number of circumstances that come
together for that Perfect Storm to blow in your direction. *And yes, I am in the
former group.... having run a C-210 out of gas after a 45 minute flight with an
hour and a half's worth of fuel on board. *Or at least I thought I had.


My experience was certainly a classic example of a chain of events
that combined to create a potential disaster. I allowed too many
"little" things to add up. Each factor on their own wouldn't have
caused the incident.

Many (locals and newsgroups) give me a hard time as I almost always
fly with full fuel, but I'm paranoid about fuel.

I was headed home from HTL (Houghton Lake) which is a short 49 NM
hop. I had just passed over GDW (Gladwin) when I noticed the left main
was only about half full when it should have been still showing full.
I gave the infamous "slide switches" some rapid movement back and
fourth between tanks but in another minute it was showing lower, and
still lower in another minute which had me making one of those steep
slipping U-turns to GDW. A visual of the tank showed it to be nearly
full. Some poking and prodding of said switches and the gage was
showing full again. How such expensive airplanes can use such crappy
switches in the fuel system is beyond me.

However as to Cherokees, we had one member of our club of 5 who didn't
fly all that often, but still managed to put quite a few more hours on
the plane than the rest of us who flew quite often. We might fly a
half hour to maybe a couple hours at a time while his fewer trips
would be close to 5 hours each way such as taking his family from MI
to MO. One night on the way home he had a bodacious head wind. He'd
flown the route many times, but never thought about the effects of the
wind. He landed here late at night. When he filled up he apparently
had less than a gallon in one tank with the other dry. He didn't have
enough fuel to do a go around.

OTOH (and I've told this many times) We'd been out for several hours
(Close to 3 IIRC) with me working on my instrument rating. We were
doing the ILS 05 at MBS after returning from GDW. I'd called for the
published missed on the option. I went full power at DH/MM, hit the
gear switch, and brought the nose up to be greeted by .... *silence*.
I had forgotten to switch from the AUX (level flight only) to the
mains before starting the ILS. I never forgot again:-)) It's amazing
how fast you can reach down and turn a valve that's in a position you
can't even see. The instructor shouted "Left tank, Left tank Rog". I
had them switched before he got out half of the first "Left". Again
the engine was running almost instantly. Of course at that point the
loudest noise in the plane was the sound of my heart beating in my
ears.

Whether it's fuel, pre flight, fasteners, what ever, we all make
mistakes. Generally by themselves they are of little consequence or
just embarrassing, but when coupled into "that chain of events" can
prove disastrous..

A good friend and his brother took off for a flight around the area in
his GP4. He had modified the plane to use a 250HP engine instead of
the 4 cylinder. The wings had been moved to take care of the GC, but
the CG was still a bit narrow. Pitch forces on the stick were non
existent, roll was fine. Response was... shall we say *quick*. I
sneezed while flying the thing and it took me about 2 miles to get rid
of the PIO. He was a graduate of the school of stall avoidance, the
GP-4 has a very small vertical stab and rudder. To add one more item
(discovered later) his fuel tank caps had leaky seals.

Put this whole chain of things together, the leaky caps emptied the
tanks in less than an hour, they couldn't believe they were out of
fuel yet, Stalled while trying for a restart, ended up in a flat spin
all the way to the ground. No survivors. The largest piece was what
was left of the engine.

Roger (K8RI) ARRL Life Member
N833R (World's oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com