Post-Annual Flight

On Feb 22, 7:15*am, B A R R Y wrote:
Jay Maynard wrote:
How does a fuel gauge that's so unreliable that you can't trust it to within
a quarter tank tell you whether you've got a fuel leak? That description
applies to every aircraft I flew during my primary training, late 1970s
vintage Cessna and Piper and Grumman products (this was in the late 1980s).
I was taught to verify the tank's level on preflight, and use time and
consumption per hour to figure usage.

That's my point.

Is "Airplane Sense" a simmer? *G

Only when I'm not flying for real.

I've rented dozens of planes throughout the US, and I don't recall any
in which the fuel gauges didn't perform well enough to provide at
least a rough cross-check of my calculations.

Look, aviation safety is about redundancy. And it's about being
prepared for unlikely but serious problems. So I find it disconcerting
to hear from pilots who habitually don't bother to perform a simple,
potentially useful cross-check, or who even habitually fly without the
required properly-working equipment to enable them to do so.

On Feb 22, 8:51*am, "Dave Stadt" wrote:
wrote in message

...

On Feb 21, 10:36 pm, "Dave Stadt" wrote:
Mine bounce around so much they are useless.

Then your plane isn't airworthy.

Wrong! They work exactly as designed and as installed by the manufacturer.

You're saying the manufacturer designed your gauges to "bounce around
so much they are useless"?

Even if that were true, it wouldn't make your plane airworthy. If a
tank's fuel gauge doesn't give you information about the tank's fuel
level, then it fails to meet the airworthiness requirement 91.205b9.

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 05:33:50 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Feb 22, 6:01*am, Peter Clark
wrote:
Yup, no disagreement. I just meant that an inop gauge (in addition to
a legal, working one for the same tank) doesn't automatically violate
91.205b9.

It would if that working guage isn't TSO'd as a primary guage and/or
two factory installed guages are called out by the equipment list
and/or KOEL.

Agreed. (By 'automatically' I meant 'necessarily'. Sorry for my
imprecision.)

No worries.

On Feb 21, 5:30*pm, "Jay Honeck" wrote:
http://www.metcoaire.com/products/pr...straight.shtml

Scroll down to 'Replacement Fiberglass *Tail Cone' section.
Metco's fiberglass parts are first rate quality.

Thanks for the link!

The repaint can't be all that bad. We had a custom paint job on old
wheelpants accurately duplicated onto a set of new ones by a local
auto paint & body shop for only a couple hundred dollars materials &
labor.

All the stripes on the plane (3 different colors) are on that tail cone,
plus the base coats of gray and white. * What a PIA to do, but I'm afraid it
will have to be done.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

Jay, you might want to try and take your broken tail tip and your new
tail tip to a shop that paints motorcycle helmets or to an airbrush
guy and have them paint the new one to match the old one. I'm not
sure if anyone else had suggested this, I haven't read the entire
thread yet, the part about the 'in-op' sticker is interesting.

Not having ever owned an airplane and looking into owning one in the
future, I found your write up a good read,

Wil

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 06:29:23 -0800 (PST), William Hung wrote:

Not having ever owned an airplane and looking into owning one in the
future, I found your write up a good read,

Yeah... it convinced me to keep on renting.

:- )


--
Dallas

In rec.aviation.owning Bob Noel wrote:
In article ,
wrote:

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but a flow gauge has no way of sensing
the amount of fuel actually in the tank, does it? So it has no way of
indicating a leak, which is the whole crux of the matter.

You keep talking about detecting a leak. Have you flown a comanche?
Do you consider the pa-24-260 to be unsafe because the fuel gauge
can only read one tank at a time? How often does a tank develop
a leak in flight?

How often does an oil leak develop in flight? Might as well do away with
the oil pressure guage by that reasoning.

Most in flight gas "leaks" in GA aircraft are from the filler cap not
being secure.

--
Jim Pennino

Remove .spam.sux to reply.

Speaking of urgan legends, it's a not true that FAR 23 applies to aircraft certified under CAR 3. CAR 3 requiremnets are not as stringent regarding the accuracy of the gauges (or a lot of other stuff). FAR part 23 does not apply to Jays aircraft. However FAR part 91 does. Technically, he was illegel, but he did use a lot of common sense dealing with the issue. The FAA would probably hang him out to dry if he crashed due to a fuel issue, and placarding the tank really didn't make the flights legal.

FAA regs are written to cover any plane that could be flown by any rated pilot. They don't make exceptions to the situations where an owner is aware of a issue and takes steps to fly safely inspite of the issue. So even if the owner took sensible steps to fly safely under the circumstances, he is still illegal, but then again, so am I when I drive 60 in a 55 mph speed zone.

His biggest mistake was bringing it up in a public forum where every one could fuss at him. If he flew with the tank empty and didn't have it placarded, the gage would be right, and the FAA wouldn't know there was a violation - as long as he didn't fess up to knowing it didn't work when there was fuel in the tank.

While sensible, the placard is incriminating and if he is keeping fuel in the tank, then he is using it and the gauge should work. However this isn't really a terrible crime for a person using his own aircraft and sensibly dealing with the issue. He is probably aware that the FAA might make a point out of it if he crashed. But he made a descision to keep flying based on what he considered an exceptable risk.

Originally Posted by

On Feb 21, 4:21*pm, Ray Andraka wrote:
It should tell you if the tank is empty. *The fuel gauge is required to
read correctly for an empty tank.

There's an urban legend that the fuel gauge is only required to be
correct for an empty tank. The legend apparently arises from a bizarre
misreading of 23.1337b1. What 23.1337b1 actually says is just
clarifying that the 'empty' reading must correspond to zero USABLE
fuel, as opposed to zero TOTAL fuel. There is nothing whatsoever to
suggest that non-empty readings needn't be correct--that would be
absurd. (If it were true, a gauge that ALWAYS says 'empty' would be
legal! You could just write 'empty' on a piece of paper and call that
your fuel gauge!)

The requirement for indications of a tank's fuel level (not just on
empty) is stated in 91.205b9, 23.1305a1, and 23.1337b.

wrote in message
...
On Feb 22, 8:51 am, "Dave Stadt" wrote:
wrote in message

...

On Feb 21, 10:36 pm, "Dave Stadt" wrote:
Mine bounce around so much they are useless.

Then your plane isn't airworthy.

Wrong! They work exactly as designed and as installed by the manufacturer.

You're saying the manufacturer designed your gauges to "bounce around
so much they are useless"?

Even if that were true, it wouldn't make your plane airworthy. If a
tank's fuel gauge doesn't give you information about the tank's fuel
level, then it fails to meet the airworthiness requirement 91.205b9.

Then there are thousands if aircraft out there that are unairworthy. That
is not true and you are still wrong.

"Dave Stadt" wrote in
:


wrote in message
.
.. On Feb 22, 8:51 am, "Dave Stadt" wrote:
wrote in message

.
..

On Feb 21, 10:36 pm, "Dave Stadt" wrote:
Mine bounce around so much they are useless.

Then your plane isn't airworthy.

Wrong! They work exactly as designed and as installed by the
manufacturer.

You're saying the manufacturer designed your gauges to "bounce around
so much they are useless"?

Even if that were true, it wouldn't make your plane airworthy. If a
tank's fuel gauge doesn't give you information about the tank's fuel
level, then it fails to meet the airworthiness requirement 91.205b9.

Then there are thousands if aircraft out there that are unairworthy.
That is not true and you are still wrong.


It is true. All a fuel gauge will tell you accurately is that it is mounted
in the panel.

Bertie

On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 13:10:51 -1000, "Owner" wrote:


Yes, but he has shown interest in the past in learning to fly. He was upset
after a discovery flight because the instructor kept telling him to relax as
there was a lot of pilot induced osscilation. Though I must say he has
learned much through books and online groups like this one.


Anonymous poster to the rescue...

8^)


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