Running dry?

Greg Copeland wrote:

In September 2004 issue of AOPA Flight Training, Mark Cook has an article,
"No Fueln' Around". Under the "Selector boy" side article, he mentions
that he runs some of his tanks dry in his Bellanca Viking. In at least
one of John Deakin's articles
(http://www.avweb.com/news/columns/182044-1.html), he not only recommends
running tanks dry but puts forth a powerful argument that it's a
responsible fuel management strategy. Furthermore, Deakin also offers
that he has never found an NTSB accident report related to a failed engine
start when running a tank dry and switching to the next. Both guys
recommend setting a timer a couple of minutes before the tank should run
dry; which acts of both early warning and as validation of your
anticipated fuel consumption.

Is this common? How many run their tank(s) dry as part of their fuel
management strategy? If you don't run dry, why not? Aside from the heat
beat skipping which is sure to follow the first couple of times, what's
the down side to this strategy?

Yes, as usual John Deakin is right on the money. Just ran the tanks dry
today, in fact. I do a commute to work two to three times per week and
have found that by carefully managing my fuel consumption, and by
completely utilizing the aux tanks, I can avoid an extra stop for fuel
every third trip.

There is nothing I can think of relating to running a tank dry in cruise
that would cause any difficulty or concern other than psychological. Go
ahead and do it... the article you read gave you all the right data,
and all the right reasons.

I have run the tanks dry on both sides about three times each so I
know my gauges are accurate and can predict to within about 0.2 to 0.3
gallon useage when the engine will stumble.

Not once did the engine quit.

To be honest about the first time I was circling over an unused runway
and for some unexplained reason the circles became tighter (smaller
radius) as the tank got closer to zero. Obviously I had planty of
altitude.

Ron Lee