Water in the fuel

It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.
Ever. Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? (I fly in SoCal. Maybe that has something to do with it.)

rg

On Mar 15, 6:56*pm, Ron Garret wrote:
It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. *Not a drop. *
Ever. *Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? *(I fly in SoCal. *Maybe that has something to do with it..)

Sounds unusual to me. But I live in a more humid place . The most
likely time to find the odd drop is first flight of the day.
after air in the tanks has cooled down below dew point. Keeping tanks
filled overnight will help, but having dry air and warm climate will
reduce the likliehood.
terry.

The early Mooney 201's had a fuel cap that was difficult to secure
correctly. In those days my husband found, when he came to the airport
to fly home after a business meeting, if it had been raining
sometimes he'd find water in the fuel. Those were the days when the
FBO would fill the visiter's airplane.

Draining the water from the tanks when it was raining while still
dressed in a suit did not make his day. Of course draining the water
through the fuel drain was better than having the engine try to burn
it.




On Mar 15, 6:56*pm, Ron Garret wrote: It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. *Not a drop. *
Ever. *Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? *(I fly in SoCal. *Maybe that has something to do with it.)

Sounds unusual to me. But I live in a more humid place . *The most
likely time to find the odd drop is first flight of the day.
after air in the tanks has cooled down below dew point. *Keeping tanks
filled overnight will help, *but having dry air and warm climate will
reduce the likliehod.
terry.

"terry" wrote On Mar 15, 6:56 pm, Ron Garret wrote:
It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.
Ever. Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? (I fly in SoCal. Maybe that has something to do with it.)

Sounds unusual to me. But I live in a more humid place . The most
likely time to find the odd drop is first flight of the day.
after air in the tanks has cooled down below dew point. Keeping tanks
filled overnight will help, but having dry air and warm climate will
reduce the likliehood.
terry.

Most likely in Qld, NT and the top end of WA. Not so likely in Vic, SA and
south WA. Possible in NSW.

:-)

YMMV

In article ,
Ron Garret wrote:

It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.
Ever. Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? (I fly in SoCal. Maybe that has something to do with it.)

In 600+ plus hours I haven't found any either (northeast).

--
Bob Noel
(goodness, please trim replies!!!)

On Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:43:54 -0700 (PDT), terry
wrote:

On Mar 15, 6:56*pm, Ron Garret wrote:
It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. *Not a drop. *
Ever. *Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? *(I fly in SoCal. *Maybe that has something to do with it.)

Sounds unusual to me. But I live in a more humid place .

I live in a humid and damp place (New England, USA), and I've seen it
exactly once, attributed to am incorrectly installed cap and hard
rain. The other tank was fine.

In fact, so much water got in the tank, it took two GATTS jars to see
fuel! Imagine the surprise of draining a full jar of colorless
liquid. The second jar produced ~ 1" of fuel at the top. If I were
using one of those little test tube testers, I probably would have
pulled 4-5 fills before I got to fuel.

On Mar 15, 10:02*pm, "dVaridel" wrote:
"terry" *wrote On Mar 15, 6:56 pm, Ron Garret wrote: It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.
Ever. Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? (I fly in SoCal. Maybe that has something to do with it.)

Sounds unusual to me. But I live in a more humid place . *The most
likely time to find the odd drop is first flight of the day.
after air in the tanks has cooled down below dew point. *Keeping tanks
filled overnight will help, *but having dry air and warm climate will
reduce the likliehood.
terry.

Most likely in Qld, NT and the top end of WA. *Not so likely in Vic, SA and
south WA. *Possible in NSW.

yeh I am in Vic. I have seen it a few times, but only like 1 or 2
small drops. I have never really thought about it much but I have
just done a few calcs to see how much water would actually be in the
air.
At 30 deg C and 70%RH say in a 172 with half full tanks, you have
100 liters of air with a dew point of 24 deg C containing 2 g of
water. If that air cooled down to 10 deg C, approximated 1 g of
water would condense.
BUT, from memory I think that the solubility of water in fuel is
around 100 ppm, thus 100 litres of fuel could hold about 10 g of
water, so it would depend on how dry the fuel is to begin with.

"Ron Garret" wrote in message
...
It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.
Ever. Am I just lucky, or is this really as rare an occurrence as it
seems to be? (I fly in SoCal. Maybe that has something to do with it.)

rg

I live in Georgia, and there are few places more humid. I've never found
water in my aircraft's tanks. My belief is that water in the fuel usually
comes from a contaminated source. Also from leaky caps. I don't believe
condensation is a major player.

Kyle Boatright

It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.

I've never found water in any aircraft I've owned and maintained.

I once drained over a quart of water out of a clapped out old rental
Cherokee 140, in Wisconsin. When I couldn't see any blue gas after using
the fuel tester, I fetched the owner (also the FBO owner), who opened the
quick-drain into a jug until it turned blue.

Shortly afterwards, the FBO stopped using their underground tanks.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:GWPCj.23711$TT4.5684@attbi_s22...
It occurred to me today that in fifteen years of flying I have never
once found water in my fuel when I've drained my tanks. Not a drop.

I've never found water in any aircraft I've owned and maintained.



It's because the alcohol in the auto fuel absorbs it all...


I once drained over a quart of water out of a clapped out old rental
Cherokee 140, in Wisconsin. When I couldn't see any blue gas after using
the fuel tester, I fetched the owner (also the FBO owner), who opened the
quick-drain into a jug until it turned blue.

Shortly afterwards, the FBO stopped using their underground tanks.
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"