Running dry?

So, you're ok over the Sierras without the motor running?

On 2005-08-19, Michael wrote:
Are your gauges accurate enough to reliably tell the difference between
30 minutes fuel at 60% power and empty in tyubulent air?
Will your fuel computer account for fuel that leaves via a cap that has
developed a leak?

I think this is why it is important to have fuel gauges that are at
least useful, and give a reasonable indication of how much fuel is left
- so you can tell if there's less fuel in the tank than you expected
there to be. It can alert you to a problem. The first time I took a
Cessna 182 (the 1960 model, which didn't have overly capacious fuel
tanks to start with) for a long cross country, I landed short of my
destination because the fuel gauges showed that I had less fuel than my
time/fuel burn calculation said I had. The fuel gauge was right - I did
have less fuel than I expected. Reasonably working fuel gauges can alert
you to fuel leaks, missing fuel caps and other sources of having less
fuel than you expected to have.

--
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"

"Robert M. Gary" writes:

Flying over the Sierras, dodging TS's is exciting enough,

Yeah, been there, didn't enjoy it.

I don't need to turn off the fan to add more excitment to my life.

We seem to have diverging groups. Some of us see running a tank (nearly)
dry as a non-event. Others see it as "turn[ing] off the fan". I've seen
a few references to the *possibility* that some planes will actually lose
power for more than an instant if the tank is run down. Are any of us
who run the tanks "dry" actually experiencing this? I suspect that the
reason most of us who do this don't get so excited about it is because it
is such a non-event. Is that plane-specific?

(I've had it take a long time to figure out which tank just went dry when
an engine started surging. It wakes me up but it's sure not so exciting
that I'd avoid the practice.)

--kyler

On 19 Aug 2005 10:48:45 -0700, "Robert M. Gary"
wrote:

Too many of you have been reading "The Cheap *******'s Pilot's Guide".
I have good working gauges and a fuel computer that has been
professionally calibrated and verified at each 100 hour inspection. I
don't need to make the wife want to leave me in order to know how much
fuel I have. Flying over the Sierras, dodging TS's is exciting enough,
I don't need to turn off the fan to add more excitment to my life.

What happens if a tank develops a leak? We had a Comanche go down a
few years ago due to running out of fuel. He took off with full fuel
and at that point should have had near half left.

The verdict? Mice had chewed holes in the bladders. When he fueled
up the pressure kept the bladders sealed against the metal so no leaks
were apparent, but once in the air the turbulence kept him bouncing
enough that the tanks lost a lot of fuel.

He knew how much he burned, but the gauges were bouncing too, or at
least until they were near empty. He was doing really well on that
paved mountain road until he found that mail box sent on a steel pipe
full of concrete.

No injuries except for the airplane and with a new wing it's been back
flying for some time.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com