Running dry?

On 2005-08-22, Jay Honeck wrote:
1. Refuel after every flight. You will be ready to go for your next flight,
and can rest assured that you have gas on board. (Renters will have to
switch this to refueling BEFORE every flight.)

Again, this is not a hard and fast rule. It is NOT stupidity to NOT do
this, and often it's necessary. Indeed, airlines routinely fly without
full tanks.

I'm making an assumption here - by refuelling, you mean top the tanks. I
apologise if this isn't what you really mean, but let's assume that you
(or the generic 'you') do mean that. It probably works well for you with
your aircraft and your typical mission. But consider this.

I did my multi training in a Piper Apache (Geronimo conversion) which
carried rather a lot of fuel. Seven hours of fuel in fact. 7 hours of
fuel weighs quite a bit, even at the fuel burn of a Piper Apache. The
plane has 5 seats. I need to be able to trade off fuel for payload in
case a bunch of us are going somewhere. 7 hours of fuel and 5 filled
seats = way over gross, which in a Piper Apache means you are not going
anywhere other than down should one of the donkeys decides to take the
day off. To fly with half fuel to go to an airport an hour away is
NOT bad decision making - it is called trading off range for payload,
and as I said, it's common practise with the airlines.

Really, the same goes for taking 4 people in a Cessna 172 or a Warrior -
you're going to have to trade off fuel for payload. I don't consider it
"stupid" to carry only 2.5 hours of fuel to take three friends on a 30
minute sightseeing trip around the local area.

About 2 weeks ago, I was flying with my friend Paul in his Cessna 180.
We were departing from an 860 foot long back country airstrip with a
field elevation of 4200 feet. If the airfield sold fuel (it doesn't), it
would have been foolish in the extreme to top the tanks before departing
this airfield. (Of course, some people may argue it's foolish in the
extreme to use that airstrip at all, but IMHO the rewards exceeded the
risks).

My old Cessna 140. I've flown it up in the mountains. Flying with half
fuel was a given. With 85 horsepower you need all the help you can get
at high elevations.

Towing the gliders at Andreas. Taking a full tank of fuel in the Auster
simply prolongs the climb and means you have to run the engine at full
power (where it gets hot because the installation doesn't exactly have
the best cooling in the world). Much better to avoid flying with more
than half tanks.

If your normal mission and your aircraft allows it, by all means top off
after every flight. However, it is not stupid or wrong NOT to top off
after every flight - especially if you don't know what your next flight
will be and you fly a plane where you can usefully trade range for
something else (rate of climb or non-fuel payload). The main thing is to
use your brain when deciding how much fuel to carry.

4. Measure your gas with your watch, never your fuel gauges.

No. Measure your gas with your watch AND KEEP THE FUEL GAUGES IN YOUR
CROSS CHECK. If the fuel gauges indicate less fuel than you expect to
have at the given stage of the flight, land and check it out. Do NOT
ignore your fuel gauges. If you own the plane, it behooves you to make
sure your fuel gauges are at least useful enough so that you can detect
the situation where you have less fuel than you calculated. If you rent,
get to know the planes you fly and know how useful the fuel gauges are
for cross-checking.

Working fuel gauges provide a useful cross check. In most things in
aviation - you should avoid relying on a single source of data and at
least have a cross check. For your watch and fuel calculations, cross
check with the gauges. For your GPS, cross check by using VOR and
pilotage. There's lots of emphasis on cross checks when flying IFR. It's
not just IFR that benefits from cross checking - pretty much anything is
less likely to land you with an unpleasant surprise if you can perform a
cross check.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"