Winds on approach

Well, Mark and Tim, if I had been keeping up with weather conditions at the
destination while enroute, which is a common-sense precaution, and learned
that the weather was really going downhill, I would have landed short or
turned around and gone home. I have done this on Part 135 trips,
discomfiting but not killing my passengers. There is nothing so urgent that
you have to do what you had planned to do.

When I chose my alternate, I had to meet the 1-2-3 rule. If the wx at the
alternate has gone to hell in a handbasket, I have done a lousy job of
planning. The best alternate has good and improving VFR weather.

I've never had a fuel leak to deal with, but I would hope that sinking fuel
gauges would have caught my eye before I was on the approach. No platitudes
about fuel gauges, please.

Unexpected holding? The word is "unable due to low fuel state."

Bob Gardner

"Mark Hansen" wrote in message
...
On 03/30/07 09:31, Bob Gardner wrote:
Let's see, Tim...you do carry IFR reserves, right? So you should have
enough
for the approach plus what it takes to get to an alternate plus 45
minutes?
Where does the risk of fuel come in?

To imagine that low fuel will never be a consideration is simply
ridiculous.
How about when you get to your alternate, and can't get in due to weather,
and you're forced to go to another airport? How about unexpected holding?
How about a fuel leak (as someone else pointed out)?

Are you really saying that a pilot need not consider the possibility?
That would be very bad advice, in my opinion.


Bob Gardner


--
Mark Hansen, PP-ASEL, Instrument Airplane
Cal Aggie Flying Farmers
Sacramento, CA