Idiot Pilot Runs Out of Gas - Lands Cessna on I-81 - CAN'T BECHARGED!!

On Apr 4, 4:02*pm, William Hung wrote:
On Apr 4, 10:53*am, Gene Seibel wrote:

Took off on a night flight in the Cherokee last November. I
incorrectly remembered how much fuel I'd used on the previous flight
by 20 minutes. I planned for what I believed to be a 45 minute
reserve. Headwinds increased sooner along my path than I expected. By
the time I reached my destination, the reserve had dwindled to what I
believed was 30 minutes. I clicked my mic 5 times to turn on runway
lights and they did not come on. Turns out this airport took 7 clicks
to turn on. I'd heard of taking 7 for a certain intensity, but in my
30 years had never run into one that took 7 clicks to turn on. Had I
stayed in the area, I'd have probably tried that next, but I knew
there was another airport 12 minutes away whose lights stayed on, so I
headed for it. Unfortunately the 30 minutes of fuel I thought I had
was only 10.

You were very lucky. *Thanks for sharing.

I know that I am very fortunate to be able to tell this story. It's
mind boggling to think about the number of ways this could have gone
very, very bad.
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.

wrote:
On Apr 5, 11:27 am, Dudley Henriques wrote:

The question always remains concerning the exact point of transfer for
responsibility of the flight from the instructor to the student. There
is always some point where the instructor has to rely on the student to
do as trained to do. In my opinion that decision point for the
instructor must be up front, BEFORE the release takes place.
Extending the "conditions for the flight" to a cell phone call with the
student at a remote location to insure conditions have been met simply
extends the final release of this responsibility while at the same time
poses the question that if such a call is necessary at all, the student
wasn't prepared properly for the flight initially.

The bottom line is up front with the instructor. The instructor has to
decide up front whether or not the student will perform properly on all
levels before the sign off. This is a responsibility not to be taken
lightly.

Dudley Henriques

Makes sense -- I've always assumed the CFI need to be absolutely
certain the student will adhere to the rules/checklists/etc prior to
launch for the long XC.

But the endorsement has restrictions - does that imply a division of
responsibility?

These days of litigation makes me wonder...


Dan Mc

This is the "devil in the details" thing about instructing. Legally
there is a "certain", and instructors have to exist in this world of
legal definition that means existing with lawyers who make a career out
of twisting everything and anything that CAN be twisted into a settlement.
But the REALITY of it as things exist in the real world is that there
are no "certains". All the instructors can do is the best they can.
There are no guarantees; only the one on one of the instructor working
within the system with the student. You take a chance every time you
take on a student.

The bottom line could very well be that becoming a flight instructor
carries as much pure risk for as little reward as anything ever designed
by man as a means to make money.

--
Dudley Henriques

On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 09:29:20 -0700 (PDT), Gene Seibel
wrote:

On Apr 4, 1:55*pm, "Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com
wrote:
Gene Seibel wrote:
This forum should be a good place to share experiences, but with the
tendency to pile on people that make mistakes, I've been hesitant to
share my recent fuel exhaustion experience. Well, I'll go ahead and be
the group's "Idiot".

There's those who have and those that will. *Folks want to stay in the latter
group as long as possible. *To those who insist they could never make that same
mistake, I just shake my head. *Usually it's a number of circumstances that come
together for that Perfect Storm to blow in your direction. *And yes, I am in the
former group.... having run a C-210 out of gas after a 45 minute flight with an
hour and a half's worth of fuel on board. *Or at least I thought I had.


My experience was certainly a classic example of a chain of events
that combined to create a potential disaster. I allowed too many
"little" things to add up. Each factor on their own wouldn't have
caused the incident.

Many (locals and newsgroups) give me a hard time as I almost always
fly with full fuel, but I'm paranoid about fuel.

I was headed home from HTL (Houghton Lake) which is a short 49 NM
hop. I had just passed over GDW (Gladwin) when I noticed the left main
was only about half full when it should have been still showing full.
I gave the infamous "slide switches" some rapid movement back and
fourth between tanks but in another minute it was showing lower, and
still lower in another minute which had me making one of those steep
slipping U-turns to GDW. A visual of the tank showed it to be nearly
full. Some poking and prodding of said switches and the gage was
showing full again. How such expensive airplanes can use such crappy
switches in the fuel system is beyond me.

However as to Cherokees, we had one member of our club of 5 who didn't
fly all that often, but still managed to put quite a few more hours on
the plane than the rest of us who flew quite often. We might fly a
half hour to maybe a couple hours at a time while his fewer trips
would be close to 5 hours each way such as taking his family from MI
to MO. One night on the way home he had a bodacious head wind. He'd
flown the route many times, but never thought about the effects of the
wind. He landed here late at night. When he filled up he apparently
had less than a gallon in one tank with the other dry. He didn't have
enough fuel to do a go around.

OTOH (and I've told this many times) We'd been out for several hours
(Close to 3 IIRC) with me working on my instrument rating. We were
doing the ILS 05 at MBS after returning from GDW. I'd called for the
published missed on the option. I went full power at DH/MM, hit the
gear switch, and brought the nose up to be greeted by .... *silence*.
I had forgotten to switch from the AUX (level flight only) to the
mains before starting the ILS. I never forgot again:-)) It's amazing
how fast you can reach down and turn a valve that's in a position you
can't even see. The instructor shouted "Left tank, Left tank Rog". I
had them switched before he got out half of the first "Left". Again
the engine was running almost instantly. Of course at that point the
loudest noise in the plane was the sound of my heart beating in my
ears.

Whether it's fuel, pre flight, fasteners, what ever, we all make
mistakes. Generally by themselves they are of little consequence or
just embarrassing, but when coupled into "that chain of events" can
prove disastrous..

A good friend and his brother took off for a flight around the area in
his GP4. He had modified the plane to use a 250HP engine instead of
the 4 cylinder. The wings had been moved to take care of the GC, but
the CG was still a bit narrow. Pitch forces on the stick were non
existent, roll was fine. Response was... shall we say *quick*. I
sneezed while flying the thing and it took me about 2 miles to get rid
of the PIO. He was a graduate of the school of stall avoidance, the
GP-4 has a very small vertical stab and rudder. To add one more item
(discovered later) his fuel tank caps had leaky seals.

Put this whole chain of things together, the leaky caps emptied the
tanks in less than an hour, they couldn't believe they were out of
fuel yet, Stalled while trying for a restart, ended up in a flat spin
all the way to the ground. No survivors. The largest piece was what
was left of the engine.

Roger (K8RI) ARRL Life Member
N833R (World's oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

wrote:
Many (locals and newsgroups) give me a hard time as I almost always
fly with full fuel, but I'm paranoid about fuel.


Don't let them beat you down. I'd rather fly overgrossed than out of fuel. My
personal fuel rule has become: if I'm worried about it, I don't have enough. I
think it's a fine rule of thumb. I hate flying worried.



--
Mortimer Schnerd, RN
mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com

In article ,
"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote:

wrote:
Many (locals and newsgroups) give me a hard time as I almost always
fly with full fuel, but I'm paranoid about fuel.


Don't let them beat you down. I'd rather fly overgrossed than out of
fuel. My personal fuel rule has become: if I'm worried about it, I
don't have enough.

Same here. I know from experience that the airplane flies just fine a
little bit overgross. I have a pretty good hunch that it won't fly very
well at all with the tanks a little bit under empty.

Looking at it another way, I'd rather have the FAA ****ed at me than
gravity ****ed at me.

On 2008-04-05, Roy Smith wrote:
In article ,
"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote:
Don't let them beat you down. I'd rather fly overgrossed than out of
fuel. My personal fuel rule has become: if I'm worried about it, I
don't have enough.
Same here. I know from experience that the airplane flies just fine a
little bit overgross. I have a pretty good hunch that it won't fly very
well at all with the tanks a little bit under empty.

While this is my philosophy as well, I do have to wonder: if an aircraft is
designed for a particualr gross weight, does consistently flying it over
gross put stress on the airframe that will, in the long term, weaken the
structure?
--
Jay Maynard, K5ZC http://www.conmicro.com
http://jmaynard.livejournal.com http://www.tronguy.net
Fairmont, MN (FRM) (Yes, that's me!)
AMD Zodiac CH601XLi N55ZC (ordered 17 March, delivery 2 June)

On Sat, 05 Apr 2008 23:16:41 GMT, Jay Maynard
wrote:

On 2008-04-05, Roy Smith wrote:
In article ,
"Mortimer Schnerd, RN" mschnerdatcarolina.rr.com wrote:
Don't let them beat you down. I'd rather fly overgrossed than out of
fuel. My personal fuel rule has become: if I'm worried about it, I
don't have enough.
Same here. I know from experience that the airplane flies just fine a
little bit overgross. I have a pretty good hunch that it won't fly very
well at all with the tanks a little bit under empty.

While this is my philosophy as well, I do have to wonder: if an aircraft is
designed for a particualr gross weight, does consistently flying it over
gross put stress on the airframe that will, in the long term, weaken the
structure?

In aircraft that aren't shipped from the factory with a max ZFW or
MGLW I would suspect that they've got sufficient margins to handle it,
at least for taxi and takeoff if kept well within normal manuvering
laods and Va when appropriate. I wouldn't want to land it over MGWL
or MGTW, whichever is lower. But that's just one person's opinion.

"Jay Maynard" wrote ...

Roy Smith wrote:
I know from experience that the airplane flies just fine a
little bit overgross.

... if an aircraft is designed for a particualr gross weight, does
consistently flying it over gross put ....

Interesting thread direction. Does anyone know what is usually the limiting
performance element the manufacturer runs up against to determine Gross
Weight Limits?

A thread on this a while back concluded that "go-around performance in the
landing configuration" was usually the determining factor. Another poster
cited service ceiling as being limiting. Anyone point to a researchable doc?

wrote

Put this whole chain of things together, the leaky caps emptied the
tanks in less than an hour, they couldn't believe they were out of
fuel yet, Stalled while trying for a restart, ended up in a flat spin
all the way to the ground. No survivors. The largest piece was what
was left of the engine.

Was that the cotton candy pink airplane?

Nice plane, and a real pity to go that way. I had talked with him for a
while at one OSH. I was sad to hear of that, even though I did not know him
well.
--
Jim in NC

"Jay Maynard" wrote

While this is my philosophy as well, I do have to wonder: if an aircraft
is
designed for a particualr gross weight, does consistently flying it over
gross put stress on the airframe that will, in the long term, weaken the
structure?
From the reading that I have done, the air loads for an over gross airplane
are less than a plane that is light. This is from the idea that calculated
maneuvering speeds (speeds allowed in turbulence) are allowed to be higher
with a heavy airplane.

From a simplified point of view, the highly loaded wing will slip (mushing
instead of grabbing a good bite of the air) when loaded, producing less G
than a light airplane with the wing grabbing the air easily, and changing
directions quickly, producing more G's.

Taking off on a rough field while heavy or landing heavy could still hurt
the airplane, I guess, though.

What do you all think? Is this a valid line of thought?
--
Jim in NC