Check your gas.

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.

In article ,
"vaughn" wrote:

"Flaps_50!" wrote in message
...

Seems like glider piloting is a problem (it can't be the iron fairy)
or is there another cause?

Measuring accidents on the basis of flight hours does not necessarily give
you
the whole picture. If you had ever spent much time at a glider training
operation, you would quickly see part of the difference between power
training
and glider training, and how the statistics can get skewed when you only look
at
flight hours. Glider primary training flights tend to be so short that
students
traditionally count "flights" rather than "hours". With gliders or
airplanes,
accidents happen overwhelmingly on takeoff or landing. As it turns out,
glider
students spend a greater percentage of their flight time in those two
(statistically more dangerous) phases of flight.

Very true, and there are a lot of other factors as well.

1) Gliders spend a significant amount of time flying in close proximity
to tow planes and other gliders. Two people were just killed this past
weekend in California in such an accident. Mid-air collisions are a
bigger threat than they might be in powered aircraft. There's even a
system called FLARM which was designed specifically to warn gliders of
other gliders on a collision course. (Not yet available in the US due to
our lawyerly nature, alas.)

2) A glider pilot's ideal day is very different from a power pilot's
ideal day. A fantastic day with booming lift is not much different from
a dangerous day where the winds are too dangerous, or thunderstorms will
lurk. Activities like ridge running can put gliders in close proximity
to terrain in strong turbulence for extended periods of time.

3) Many gliders are rigged by their pilots every day before flying. A
mistake during rigging can be fatal.

4) Landing patterns must be adjusted to match conditions, because the
pilot only has one shot at it and the amount of energy he has to land
with is relatively small. If the pilot experiences strong sink, strong
winds, or just arriving too low, he must have the mental flexibility to
abandon a standard square pattern and do whatever it takes to get to the
runway safely. Many will get stuck in their habitual pattern and it can
be fatal when it doesn't work out.

Of all of these, the only one that really happens *because* there's no
engine, as opposed to simply being an aspect of a sport that's built on
flying planes with no engines, is the last one. That one is not a
substantial risk as long as you maintain the necessary mental
flexibility in the pattern.

#1 can be managed with smart procedures and equipment, although not
eliminated.

#2 is completely up to the individual pilot. Many people will stay home
on a screaming ridge/wave day because it means strong turbulence and
gusts at the airport, and they don't want to deal with it. I personally
have substantially different standards for my own personal flying as
compared to taking a passenger.

#3, like so many things in aviation, can be mitigated with checklists,
checklists, checklists.

Is gliding more dangerous than regular powered flight? The stats seem to
say so, and I won't disagree. However, I don't see the danger as being
because there's no engine, as people sometimes ask me about, but rather
other factors.

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

In article ,
"vaughn" wrote:

"Mike Ash" wrote in message
...
In contrast, if you're down at 1,000ft above the ground, you had better
have a landing spot right there.

At that point (depending on your glider and conditions) you have perhaps 3
minutes of fuel in your "tank".

More like 7-10 minutes. Minimum sink rate in a typical glider will be
100-150 feet per minute. (Of course our patterns only last about 2
minutes, because we burn it off artificially in order to get down.)

Still a very small amount, and that's why you must have your landing
spot picked out and decided upon by that time.

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

In article ,
says...

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!



One little trick for Cessna drivers -
I've observed on many of the earlier 172's and 182's the fuel gauges are on
the same electrical circuit and fuse as the electric turn coordinator. If your
gauges are pegged at empty, try a few shallow banks to see if the TC is alive.
If not, and if your calculations indicate you should have fuel, you may
consider a simple (and rather common) electrical failure. On the other hand,
if the gauges are on 'E' and the TC is alive, you may want to consider getting
back to terra firma. Your mileage may vary - check your specific airplane.

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
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.


Hi Captain Obvious.

On Dec 1, 1:09 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

Vaughn you're a glider enthusiast?
Anyway I'm involved with writing flight sims too.

I can see an unexpected head wind can mess up preflight planning,
cross country, if you're using long hops, which gives the pilot
a navigation problem = divert for fuel, or push to destination.
Aviation weather forecast is usually pretty good.
Ken

On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 17:23:15 -0500, Darkwing wrote:

"Mxsmanic" wrote in message
...
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.

Hi Captain Obvious.

There you go, troll baiting, off topic comments, you're ruining this
place.
--
_?_ Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
(@ @) Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-oOO-(_)--OOo-------------------------------[ Groucho Marx ]--
grok! Devoted Microsoft User

On Tue, 1 Dec 2009 16:09:51 -0500, vaughn wrote:

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.

What a crock, you ever fly a Cessna? You're *best* indicator of fuel is
your watch.
--
_?_ Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend.
(@ @) Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read.
-oOO-(_)--OOo-------------------------------[ Groucho Marx ]--
grok! Devoted Microsoft User

On Nov 30, 10:53 am, "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

Another point I don't understand, is how one would crash
in a corn field(?), it's November, there should only be stauks.
"crashed in a northwest Iowa cornfield,"
when a dead-stick is SOP, unless the field was very rough.
I'm wondering about blood alcohol level(?).
Ken

On Dec 1, 1:16*pm, Jeffrey Bloss wrote:
On Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:00:51 -0800 (PST), Mark wrote:
That's what happened to a Beech King Air turbo a
couple of weeks ago near me. Ran out of gas, for
as yet undetermined reasons.

Uh, lessee, engine burn?

No Blossom, they took off, and within
minutes tried to make it back but failed.
The fuel issue is under investigation.

Also, you know how you use the
little...."LOL" thing in EVERY one of
your posts? Thought you might need
to know it makes you look like a
nutcase.

You're welcome.

---
Mark