Running dry?

I said "refuel" after every flight, not "top it off" after every flight.

What is the purpose of this? You need to fuel appropriately =before=
every flight. That's when the fuel is useful.

2. Install a fuel totalizer.

This tells you how much fuel you've used, not how much fuel you have
left. It's the fuel you have left that's important. Granted a
subtraction will get you there, but that depends on the very assumptions
that will bite you one day.

What other possible reason is there to do so
routinely, *other* than to stretch your range?

Every flight stretches one's range. We land with less fuel than we
started with. We take off with less runway than we started the takeoff
roll with. And leaning the engine, especially aggressively, is also
stretching one's range. What is the difference between "stretching
one's range" and "getting the maximum (fuel) performance out of the
aircraft"? I'm not sure I understand you here.

It's the *attitude* of "routinely" running tanks dry that I believe leads to
guys running out of gas.

It's the attitude of "I know how to do it, and any other way is dumb"
that I believe leads to NTSB investigations.

Running on the razor's edge of empty in an
aircraft is just asking for trouble.

Running a tank dry in a cherokee at ten thousand AGL with twenty gallons
left in the other tank is not the razor's edge of empty.

That said, I do agree that there are some risks to it - a problem may
develop with the full tank and you have nothing to go back to. I think
I'm more comfortable with some gas in each (of two) tanks, though I'm
also comfortable running tip tanks dry at an approriate time and place
if I have them (the aircraft I routinely fly don't). But I would not
condemn either fuel management principle, nor the pilots who engage in them.

Jose
--
Quantum Mechanics is like this: God =does= play dice with the universe,
except there's no God, and there's no dice. And maybe there's no universe.
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