Minimum fuel

Denny wrote:
What didn't agree was my pucker factor... Amazing what your nervous
system can do when it wants your attention... In spite of my
intellectual knowledge that I had 15 minutes until landing with 60
minutes of fuel on board, my parasympathetic nervous system threw a
tantrum...

Excellent post.... thanks. Funny thing about how one's mind works,
isn't it?

For years I used to routinely take off with a *maximum* of one hour of
fuel (1/4 tanks) for aerobatic practice. While this might sound like a
bad idea, actually it's much safer for the airframe, I'd be up high,
only a mile or two from the field, and 20-30 minutes was usually all my
inner ear could take. This didn't bother my internal 'fuel alarm' at
all.

There were times in that same airplane, however, when I'd be goin'
someplace and launch with full fuel. If I let the fuel gauges get down
to 1/4 tanks while cross country, I'd start getting very, very anxious
and that not-so-much-fun-anymore feeling would really grab hold. I too
have landed 15 minutes out for gas when I knew that there were still 60
minutes in the tanks.

Go figure.

-Dave Russell