On 1 Dec 2003 02:55:01 GMT, Del Rawlins
wrote:

On 30 Nov 2003 01:49 PM, Jay posted the following:
After reading some of the transcripts from the "Last Words" website,
where the flight engineers were dumping fuel when it became evident
that an emergecy landing was a certainty, it dawned on me that there
might be some benefit for a small plane as well. The less energy you
carry into a crash landing the better off you're going to be.

If you are making an emergency landing in a small plane, chances are
that you don't have any fuel left on board to dump.

Well... as far as homebuilts are concerned, fuel exhaustion (defined as the
pilot running the airplane out of fuel) plays only a minor role in the
overall accident rate. During 1998-2000, only 4.5% of all homebuilt
accidents involved fuel exhaustion (including some accidents that occurred
during precautionary landings due to a low fuel state).

Ron Wanttaja