Flying with fuel leak?

Here's my perspective as maintenance officer of a different flying club:

Although we are all owners in common who have a say in the maintenance
policy, all of the members except myself are more removed from the issues
than the individual owner who talks directly to the shop. We are an
organization making an aircraft available to a group with a wide range of
understanding of aircraft systems and attention to what is going on. This
implies a higher standard than the guy who goes out and flies his personal
airplane.

Although we need a certain number of flying hours to afford to keep the club
going, every individual flight we make is optional.

I don't require that the aircraft be in perfect condition to be released for
flight but I do insist that it be legal. If something is inop and on the
required equipment list as part of the certification, it gets fixed before
the plane flies. If it can be placarded, it is and we fix it at the
earliest opportunity.

We maintain our aircraft very proactively. Failures have become rare.
Insisting on a standard of airworthiness and legality such that I wouldn't
worry about a ramp check on any flight has not cost us a single hour of
flying in the last year.

I can see where operators who do minimum maintenance and defer everything
possible get backed into a position where they have to constantly compromise
with the regulations. Since we started maintaining to a high standard,
usage is up, cash flow is better, and everyone is proud of our aircraft.
--
Roger Long
Mike O'Malley wrote in message
m...

I'm not going to say I've never flown an airplane with a fuel leak,
but it all depends on the situation. Without knowing the situation,
it's hard to judge.

Example, when I was towing banners. The company had 8 airplanes, and
all of 'em were 40-60 years old. Things break, and when you're using
planes to make money, sometimes you have to prioritize things.

On the first flight of a freshly restored plane (tow plane mind you,
so any luxury item has been removed, things like radios, windows,
doors, interior, ect.) everything was going well. Plane flew well,
engine was running ok, and everything seemed to work. Of course, we
only put 15 gallons in her for the one hour flight, so the tanks were
nowhere near full. The next day, when I showed up for work, I filled
the tanks and got ready to work.

Problem- fuel leak. The PA-12 has a fuel system simlar to a Cessna,
the left tank has a vented cap, and the right tank is vented to the
left, and there is a seperate shutoff valve for each tank. The cross
vent had fuel dripping right onto my shoulder. Heck with it, it'll
stop once I burn off a few gallons, and it's evaporating anyway and
without doors and windows, it's not like I'll have a problem with
fumes.

After 5 minutes it stopped and I was able to replace the fuel line at
the end of the day. It ammounted to MAYBE 4 or 5 oz. of gas lost, and
I was able to get the work done.

When it's your airplane that you're using for pleasure you can have
the luxury of downing the plane for a week to fix something as soon as
it breaks. But if there's no room in the shop until Thursday, well,
maybe you can fly it until then.

I'm not defending places that let the maintinace go, I've worked for
them before, but not for long. They don't do "maintinace," that's
what you do to keep something from breaking. They did damage control;
run it until it won't run no more then clean up the mess and fix it.
Is that what this club is doing?

It doesn't sound like it. It sounds like they want to fix it, but
don't want to inconvenience it's members for a minor squak while the
plane waits in the shop. I've flown out of places like that, you show
up to fly, but there's no airplanes available. The only one left is
grounded because of a bad attitude gyro. On a clear VFR day. But
it's not getting worked on, it's waiting in the shop because there's a
2 day backlog.

But not everyone has the luxury of flying something that looks like it
just came off the showromm floor. Now, if you're paying for a rental,
that's another story. If I were paying top dollar for something like
that, I'd want it to work properly too. But there are always two
sides to every story. Alot of times what's recorded in a club's
minutes is the distillation of a 30 or 40 minute debate into 3
sentence.


--
Mike O'Malley