Check your gas.

Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...lying_on_empty

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.
Ken

On Nov 30, 1:53*pm, "Ken S. Tucker" wrote:
Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...travel_brief_f...

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.
Ken

I wonder how often these fuel exhaustions happen because the pilot
might have forgotten to lean his mixture or had a petcock leak and
drain away fuel, as opposed to planning a 4 hour XC with 3 + 50 of
fuel aboard?

My fuel management plan is simple, but has worked so far. I taxi out
on the least full tank (so I know it's working), do run up and so
forth on the tank I intend to use for take off (some check lists have
the PIC switch to the most full tank after run up -- I would not
switch tanks and then take off!). I burn away half the fuel in the the
take off tank, switch to the other, and it doesn't matter if my
ultimate destination is just 50 miles ahead, when I switch back to the
initial tank, thought to be half full, I will land for fuel. I don't
ever remember needing more than 45 gallons to fill both tanks in the
Mooney. and those flights include some quite long VMC cross country
flights (Long Beach CA to the east coast comes to mind),

In article
,
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...ief_flying_on_
empty

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.

This sort of thing always comes to mind when people ask me about the
danger of flying gliders. Not having an engine is an asset, not a risk,
it's one less thing to go wrong!

Somewhat more seriously... I understand that there are various obstacles
to having reliable fuel quantity indicators in a light aircraft, but I
bet that it must be possible. How difficult and expensive would a good
one end up being, and what would it look like?

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On Dec 1, 11:59*am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
*"Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...travel_brief_f...
empty

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.

This sort of thing always comes to mind when people ask me about the
danger of flying gliders. Not having an engine is an asset, not a risk,
it's one less thing to go wrong!

Somewhat more seriously... I understand that there are various obstacles
to having reliable fuel quantity indicators in a light aircraft, but I
bet that it must be possible. How difficult and expensive would a good
one end up being, and what would it look like?

a piece of dowelling!
I used a dip stick to measure the amount of fuel -every- time I went
flying.

"george" wrote in message
...
On Dec 1, 11:59 am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...travel_brief_f...
empty

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.

This sort of thing always comes to mind when people ask me about the
danger of flying gliders. Not having an engine is an asset, not a risk,
it's one less thing to go wrong!

Somewhat more seriously... I understand that there are various obstacles
to having reliable fuel quantity indicators in a light aircraft, but I
bet that it must be possible. How difficult and expensive would a good
one end up being, and what would it look like?

a piece of dowelling!
I used a dip stick to measure the amount of fuel -every- time I went
flying.

Didn't work for the Gimli Glider!

In article
,
george wrote:

On Dec 1, 11:59*am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
*"Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...travel_brief_f...
empty

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.

This sort of thing always comes to mind when people ask me about the
danger of flying gliders. Not having an engine is an asset, not a risk,
it's one less thing to go wrong!

Somewhat more seriously... I understand that there are various obstacles
to having reliable fuel quantity indicators in a light aircraft, but I
bet that it must be possible. How difficult and expensive would a good
one end up being, and what would it look like?

a piece of dowelling!
I used a dip stick to measure the amount of fuel -every- time I went
flying.

Good point there. Simple technology works well for that. However, what I
*meant* to ask about is how you could have a reliable fuel indicator
that could be read while in flight? Checking on the ground is certainly
a good idea no matter what sort of gauges you might have, but it would
be useful to be able to detect when you're using more than you think, or
just have a reminder.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On Dec 1, 11:59*am, Mike Ash wrote:
In article
,
*"Ken S. Tucker" wrote:

Meticulous pilot runs out of gas and can't land in a corn field!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap_travel/20...travel_brief_f...
empty

Must have got his license from Canadian Tire.

This sort of thing always comes to mind when people ask me about the
danger of flying gliders. Not having an engine is an asset, not a risk,
it's one less thing to go wrong!

Somewhat more seriously... I understand that there are various obstacles
to having reliable fuel quantity indicators in a light aircraft, but I
bet that it must be possible. How difficult and expensive would a good
one end up being, and what would it look like?

I agree that removing the engine might reduce the probability of a
mechanical failure, and yet the stats say gliders have more
accidents.
Among fixed-wing powered aircraft, the rate for single-engine piston
airplanes was 9.32 accidents and 1.79 fatal accidents per 100,000
hours flown. Glider operations had 28.06 accidents and 4.95 fatal
accidents per 100,000 hours flown (2005 figures). How can this be
explained -is it the landing out that is the problem or the launch (or
something else)?

Cheers

Flaps_50! writes:

I agree that removing the engine might reduce the probability of a
mechanical failure, and yet the stats say gliders have more
accidents.

Both gliders and powered aircraft require a source of propulsion, even if it
isn't the same source. Neither source of propulsion is completely reliable.

In article ,
Mxsmanic wrote:

Flaps_50! writes:

I agree that removing the engine might reduce the probability of a
mechanical failure, and yet the stats say gliders have more
accidents.

Both gliders and powered aircraft require a source of propulsion, even if it
isn't the same source. Neither source of propulsion is completely reliable.

The difference is that a glider's energy source is so UNreliable that no
sane pilot would ever count on it being there, and the glide performance
is necessarily so large, thus a safe landing spot is always kept within
range.

As for the stats, I speculate that the main reason the glider stats are
worse is because the "GA" stat includes lots of big corporate jets which
have more airliner-like safety stats. My *guess* is that comparing small
planes to gliders will reveal more similar levels of risk, but I could
easily be wrong on that.

--
Mike Ash
Radio Free Earth
Broadcasting from our climate-controlled studios deep inside the Moon

On Dec 1, 5:32*pm, Mike Ash wrote:
In article ,

*Mxsmanic wrote:
Flaps_50! writes:

I agree that removing the engine might reduce the probability of a
mechanical failure, and yet the stats say gliders have more
accidents.

Both gliders and powered aircraft require a source of propulsion, even if it
isn't the same source. Neither source of propulsion is completely reliable.

The difference is that a glider's energy source is so UNreliable that no
sane pilot would ever count on it being there, and the glide performance
is necessarily so large, thus a safe landing spot is always kept within
range.

As for the stats, I speculate that the main reason the glider stats are
worse is because the "GA" stat includes lots of big corporate jets which
have more airliner-like safety stats. My *guess* is that comparing small
planes to gliders will reveal more similar levels of risk, but I could
easily be wrong on that.


I posted the figures for single engine -not usually the class of a
corporate jet...
Seems like glider piloting is a problem (it can't be the iron fairy)
or is there another cause?

Cheers