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Most experienced CFI runs out of gas
The local news is reporting that a local CFI (with over 30,000 hours
of instruction giving since the early 1960's) ran out of gas just short of the airport after picking up a P210 and flying back from Texas to California. Boy, if it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone. It will be interesting to see the final facts. Perhaps the plane was burning way more gas than it should have (the plane had been bought that day). -Robert |
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Cessna 210's are notorious for running out of gas. Do some web searches. It
has something to do with the fuel tanks and how level the plane is during refueling. One of my CFI's has it happen to him and I helped him research the issue. The FAA took no action against him as a result. Marco "Robert M. Gary" wrote in message om... The local news is reporting that a local CFI (with over 30,000 hours of instruction giving since the early 1960's) ran out of gas just short of the airport after picking up a P210 and flying back from Texas to California. Boy, if it can happen to him, it can happen to anyone. It will be interesting to see the final facts. Perhaps the plane was burning way more gas than it should have (the plane had been bought that day). -Robert |
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"Bob Fry" wrote in message ... (Robert M. Gary) writes: local CFI (with over 30,000 hours Look at the hours. The more time exposed to potential incidents, the more likely they are to happen. Very true. My CFI said the closest he ever came to grief was a near-gear up landing while ferrying an Arrow, shortly after he crossed the 10,000-hour mark. And he's precisely the sort of guy you look at and say, "he could *never* make a dumb mistake like that." -cwk. |
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There can be plenty of reasons for this besides pilot error. A while
back one of my fuel drains developed a slow leak, and there are probably a dozen other possibilities. |
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Bob Fry wrote in message ...
(Robert M. Gary) writes: local CFI (with over 30,000 hours Look at the hours. The more time exposed to potential incidents, the more likely they are to happen. Yup. If it can happen at some stage it will happen. We listen to others admissions and, hopefully, learn from their experiences. |
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In article , Michael wrote:
The reality is that we have a dumb way of dealing with fuel. We use the clock. It's dumb because it assumes we know the fuel burn and that nothing is leaking. Too many assumptions, too easy to go wrong. What we need are accurate fuel gauges that are cheap enough to make retrofits sensible. As long as they have to be FAA certified, that won't happen. Fuel gauges in many planes *are* good enough, though. There are some that are terrible (I've never flown a C172 with a fuel gauge that was in any way useful), but many are fine. The trouble is (especially with old planes) you have to fly them a few times and check the fuel gauges to get any idea of whether they are any good. My old C140 had mechanical fuel gauges. They were very accurate. Other planes I've found good fuel gauges in - Grumman Tigers/Cheetas, the old 1960 C182 we had in the flying club, Beechcraft (both the Bonanza and Musketeer I've got to fly had fuel gauges that were worth something). The fuel gauge in the Auster I tow gliders with is very good. It's a cork with a little stick indicator on which protrudes out of the top of the fuel tank! I don't just use time, I also monitor the fuel gauges. A good job too - when I was new to our club's old C182, I *thought* it was full of fuel (visual inspection showed less than an inch between the liquid and the filler, which was full for my plane). Since it only had 55 gallon tanks, it's not hard for a cross country to be the full IFR range. My usual practise is to time AND check the gauges. If the fuel gauges show less fuel than I think I should have, it's a cause for concern. On this particular flight, I noted that at the point I should have had half a tank, I had 2/3rds of a tank indicated on the fuel gauge. Either the gauges were wrong, or I didn't have as much fuel as I should. I elected to land at the next airfield to check it out. Good job too - I had about 45 minutes less fuel than I thought I really had when I left. If I had pressed onto my desired destination just using my stopwatch as a fuel gauge, I would have arrived with about 10 minutes of fuel remaining. Diversions, holding, go arounds etc. could have easily eaten that in its entirety. Of course, before takeoff, the gauges were on the 'F' marking, but I discovered after topping off the tanks at my diversion field that 'F' isn't really quite full - it's full when the gauge points well past full (like many car fuel gauges). That last inch was in fact about 10 gallons! -- Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net "Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee" |
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