Fuel selector question

On Oct 5, 3:07 pm, "JGalban via AviationKB.com" u32749@uwe wrote:
Gene Seibel wrote:
If you are running on "BOTH" and there is an obstruction in a fuel
line, fuel could feed only from the other tank and you might find
yourself with fuel starvation long before you expect it. Changing
between left and right on a regular basis may let you discover such a
problem before it's an emergency. A close watch on fuel gauges and
being sensitive to heavy wing helps too.

In a similar vein, I was reading recently (I think on the AOPA site) about
a poor slob in a Cessna that mistakenly left a fuel cap off. Since his
selector was on "both", the vacuum from the open hole not only drained the
tank he was using, but also sucked the fuel out of the other tank as well.
As I recall he made a successful emergency landing in a lake (floatplane),
but it wasn't big enough to fly back out of.

John Galban=====N4BQ (PA28-180)

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Message posted via AviationKB.comhttp://www.aviationkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/aviation/200710/1

I totally don't believe that. Have a link? I once had a fuel cap come
off in flight, and all it did was jettison about a quarter of the fuel
on that side. This was in a AMD Alarus, which has a really poor fuel
cap design. I'm surprised they don't come off more often.

I don't believe the vacuum is so great as to suck all the fuel out
from both tanks.