On Dec 1, 4:09*pm, "vaughn"
wrote:
"Ken S. Tucker" wrote in ...

Well for small a/c (I'm Cessna 152), I fill my own and
check for water and of course color.
Otherwise, read the meter of the gas input or trust the
fella loading you.

No way! *(I suspect Ken is another who flies about as much as Mx) *I don't care
if you watched the guy top off your tank and now both guages read full. *The
wise pilot still visually checks the fuel level before flight (eyeball, finger,
or dip stick). *While you are at it, make sure that both filler caps are on
tight.

Every Flight Manual has a fuel consumption rate graph
as a function of power/rpm/cruising speed, so at flight
planning, a time and range can be estimated that does
not rely on the fuel gauge, which is accurate to +/- 10%.

I would LOVE to have a Cessna with a fuel guage that was accurate to +/- 10%.
On every Cessna I have ever flown, the fuel guages were best described as
semi-usless crap. *Do I look at them? *Yes; because in-flight they are your only
direct evidence of remaining fuel. *Do I trust them? *No!

So a cross check of a wrist watch with the fuel gauge
is a no-brainer.
Ken

Vaughn

The real worry I have about fuel exhaustion, since I almost always
take off with full tanks visually confirmed, is a leak or mis leaning
the engine on a long flight. Not being exact in leaning -- say, going
from 5 to 11 thousand feet without adjusting things -- can change burn
from 9 to 11 or 12 gallons an hour. I do my tank switching by fuel
gauge or clock, whichever is more conservative. As it happens the fuel
gauges on the Mooney are within a few gallons of 16 gallons when they
are indicating half full (they are effectively being calibrated each
time fuel is put into a tank that is thought to be half full) so that
time or gauge redundancy offers some comfort.

Many of the suggestions/comments here may actually cause thoughtful
pilots to modify their check list -- that would mean this newsgroup is
serving a useful purpose.