Have your AME do a proper fuel gauge calibration check !

[crazy_aviator]

Today, I did a 2+1 hour flight to break in overhauled cyls and give the prospective buyer some time in my plane. I fuelled up the RH tank to the top and about 1/3 full in the LH tank ( in this little plane, about 4 hr. ) . We took off and flew around for 2 hours and landed at a large airport for coffee, i checked the fuel tanks before takeoff and there appeared to be approx 1/3 tanks ( this a/c was new to me with LR tanks , also new to me) We took off and flew towards the home airport. About half way back (20 out of 60 minutes) the right fuel tank showed 1/8 and the left 1/4 . about 15 min later the right tank showed just above empty and and the left tank around 1/4 !! I was considering a higher fuel burn because of the overhauled cyls and unfamiliarity with this plane / fuel capacity. After the right tank showed empty and LH tank 1/4 , we landed 15 min short of destination ! I fuelled the plane up and found out that there was LESS than minimum legal fuel left . I checked around the plane and noticed fuel stains on the wing root of the RH wing . WHERE did I go wrong ? What did i do right?
Let me start out by saying what i did right . I previously checked the fuel gauges to provide a cockpit placard for fuel calibration. I did this by draining the tanks and noting gauge positions at unusable fuel, at 5 usg and 10 usg. This procedure should be done on ALL small aircraft but sadly, the present attitude is " ah, those gauges are never reliable anyways, so no need to check their accuracy"
I landed short of destination because the actual gauge positions in flight co-related to less than legal fuel at destination ! What i did wrong was fail to notice a trend, wherein the fuel "burn" was more than advertised and i missed to see that the fuel was going down quicker than the advertised fuel burn rate , the second thing was that i failed to do a quick pre-flight check at the enroute airport that we had coffee at ( A picture i took showed some fuel stain when i examined it after the days flight !!!) the third thing was not to trust my own work and the gauges which, in flight , are to be used basically as leak indicators!!! I calculated that 1 hours worth of fuel had leaked out during the 2.7 HR flight !! The moral of the story , IF there is ANY concern at all , LAND THE PLANE and also , DO have your AME complete a fuel calibration check on the gauges AND placard the cockpit accordingly,, it could save your bacon like it did mine today !!

[MUSKEG]

I found most fuel guages in small aircraft basically a waste of usable load. I built a dip stick marked it in 50lb increments (1/2 hr) and from then on always new exactly what I had on board. This may not work on some a/c but on cessna it's perfect.

[Widow]

Isn't this kinda what flyinthebug talked about in relation to his accident?

viewtopic.php?f=54&t=47728&p=455297&hil ... on#p455297

[crazy_aviator]

I failed to mention that the fuel gauge calibration check should be done in conjunction with the fuel STICK calibration also . The marked solid glass tube is also a good idea. Both these preflight indicators are difficult to use inflight, Ive never tried to use them while flying and have NO intention to try it LOL
Another inflight check would be to bank the A/C in increments to 20? degrees while flying straight with rudder with a KNOWN amount of fuel in the tank and note when the gauge needle stays solid . Make sure the girlfriend is aware of what you are doing and that your not trying to get closer to her ( Even though she may want that ) and vise versa

[C-FKLY]

Hmm, interesting. Did you ever find the source of the leak? Possibly a fuel cap that wasn't on properly? Good thing you decided to land and check it out -- far too many would have carried on.

Just wondering though -- why did you go with full on the right and 1/3 on the left, not 2/3 each?

[crazy_aviator]

Fuel gauges can be reliably inaccurate ,,meaning , their unusable position is known OR adjusted either by built in rheostat or float arm bending. IF the transmitter windings are intact , 50 pounds in the tank will always be at the same needle position and therefore that position can be placarded and any position other than "E" can be placarded when the A/C reaches unusable fuel . Its like an annunciator light calling to attention that something is amiss and there is either a fuel leak, excessive fuel burn or a miscalculation on the pilots/ dispachers part!
YOUR fuel gauge is the ace up the sleeve. I HIGHLY recommend keeping it serviceable and placarded for 0 useable and other important levels like 15/ 30 minutes flight positions etc . We have dual systems in Aircraft for good reason ,,, why not have a dual functioning fuel system check in place ?

[MUSKEG]

If I couldn't run with full fuel I would fill the right and keep reserve or required in left. Believe it or not this helped balance the aircraft (C-206). If I left with full tanks I always used left first and in about 1/2 hr the aircraft would require less trim to hold wings level. Less trim= more airspeed. Certainly if you dipped the tanks before leaving on a 1 hr flight you would know how much you needed, A new engine uses a little more (1 gallon P/H). Never trust the guages, if the airplane is even a little wing low on one side they are ureliable.

[crazy_aviator]

KLY, I looked for the leak and diagnosed out the outlet, vent, fuel cap and transmitter , therefore, im thinking it may be a crack in the tank , most likely the seam area . The plane has a fuel shutoff with either on or off ,,no left or right tank position , therefore the fuel would balance out and also the RH pax was substantially lighter than me and also, I didnt realize the tank was close to full when i started fuelling , so a little more fuel was put in the RH tank than i wanted HOWEVER,, it should have clued me into the fuel leak !!

[B-rad]

the second thing was that i failed to do a quick pre-flight check at the enroute airport that we had coffee at

I would say that's actually the first thing you did wrong! why wouldn't you check your airplane again? always, every stop where you're leaving your airplane, why wouldn't you re-check your fuel and oil? Heck, even if you aren't leaving your airplane. Every stop you should manually check your fuel and oil when able.

[crazy_aviator]

Yes, Kirsten , many passengers and pilots would be alive and not hurting today IF we ALL took a more proactive approach to age old problems and ATTITUDES in this industry. BECAUSE the beaver has NO way to dip the tanks , there should be an even greater level of diligence towards fuel gauge/transmitter serviceability/ calibration and an in-house system of training pilots and record keeping concerning fuel burns / loads etc on these A/C types. Two days prior to this little "incident" i had, i mentioned about doing fuel gauge calibration checks and the fact that they are MANDATED, with fellow AME s who have the equivalent of over 75 years experience in the industry and they LAUGHED at me . They even signed off a nearly new C-206 which was GOVERNMENT owned and TAXPAYER paid without doing a calibration check even though 1 AME thought the Gauge looked a little low compared to the fuel level and the inspection MANDATED the calibration check.
SOME attitudes and "old boys" standards ONLY change by deaths and STRONG enforcement , most people are not proactive and trend setting when it costs them or their jobs!!! Having both 25 years fixin and flyin aeroplanes and 400 hrs on the beaver, I understand the issues !!
Myself, I hardly give a damn, im on contract and i cant be fired, so therefore i get in peoples faces on occasion, to do the right thing. And yes, im going to tell this little story on Monday at work and they wont like me but thats just the way it is !!
As i mentioned Kirsten, i quit my last job because of an Archaic, shut up and do the job hierarchy!

[Cat Driver]

As i mentioned Kirsten, i quit my last job because of an Archaic, shut up and do the job hierarchy!

Good, you are following Cats first rule to stay alive.

The hardest thing about flying is knowing when to say no.

You can learn to fly in hours, it takes years to learn when not to.

Ignorance is just a lack of personal ambition; stupidity is congenital.

[Tim]

glad you made the decision to stop for more fuel. obviously a good call, but for some reason i think a lot of people would have found that a hard decision to make.

heres story of a buddy from the student days:

did a visual check of the fuel in the 172 before going on a solo x-c. while he was on the outbound leg someone noticed a piece of metal where the a/c was parked. the flight club decided to have him stop at the other airport and do another walk around instead of just a touch and go. he didnt find anything wrong with the plane, and figured since he was doing a walk around he would dip the tanks again even though he 'knew' he should have plenty of fuel. he found he had less than a 1/4 tank left. turns out what he saw when he visually checked the fuel was the reflection from the sun hitting the fuel and making a bluish colour around the top of the tank, which was nowhere near full. the metal was not from the plane, but it likely saved his life...at the very least saved a student pilot from attempting a dead stick landing.

glad you didnt have to do one either

[Liquid Charlie]

The Norseman had a very accurate gauge unless you threw something out window -

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Most PBY's don't have fuel gauges period.

[mag check]

Today, I did a 2+1 hour flight to break in overhauled cyls and give the prospective buyer some time in my plane. I fuelled up the RH tank to the top and about 1/3 full in the LH tank ( in this little plane, about 4 hr. ) . We took off and flew around for 2 hours and landed at a large airport for coffee, i checked the fuel tanks before takeoff and there appeared to be approx 1/3 tanks ( this a/c was new to me with LR tanks , also new to me) We took off and flew towards the home airport. About half way back (20 out of 60 minutes) the right fuel tank showed 1/8 and the left 1/4 . about 15 min later the right tank showed just above empty and and the left tank around 1/4 !! I was considering a higher fuel burn because of the overhauled cyls and unfamiliarity with this plane / fuel capacity. After the right tank showed empty and LH tank 1/4 , we landed 15 min short of destination ! I fuelled the plane up and found out that there was LESS than minimum legal fuel left . I checked around the plane and noticed fuel stains on the wing root of the RH wing . WHERE did I go wrong ? What did i do right?
Let me start out by saying what i did right . I previously checked the fuel gauges to provide a cockpit placard for fuel calibration. I did this by draining the tanks and noting gauge positions at unusable fuel, at 5 usg and 10 usg. This procedure should be done on ALL small aircraft but sadly, the present attitude is " ah, those gauges are never reliable anyways, so no need to check their accuracy"
I landed short of destination because the actual gauge positions in flight co-related to less than legal fuel at destination ! What i did wrong was fail to notice a trend, wherein the fuel "burn" was more than advertised and i missed to see that the fuel was going down quicker than the advertised fuel burn rate , the second thing was that i failed to do a quick pre-flight check at the enroute airport that we had coffee at ( A picture i took showed some fuel stain when i examined it after the days flight !!!) the third thing was not to trust my own work and the gauges which, in flight , are to be used basically as leak indicators!!! I calculated that 1 hours worth of fuel had leaked out during the 2.7 HR flight !! The moral of the story , IF there is ANY concern at all , LAND THE PLANE and also , DO have your AME complete a fuel calibration check on the gauges AND placard the cockpit accordingly,, it could save your bacon like it did mine today !!

I have to ask, since you own this a/c, and were trying to sell it, and you changed the cylinders, calibrated the gauges etc, it sounds like you just did an inspection. That makes me wonder how the rather large fuel leak was missed at that time? Was the plane subjet to damage after the inspection?
I don't know the aircraft type, but even if it is as small as a c150, that means that you lost over 5 gal of 100LL
Perhaps closer inspection techniques while doing the mandated calibration would go along way towards preventing this from happening.

[hazatude]

With the right light and fuel amount, you can observe an illusion as to the quantity of fuel in your tanks. Glassy water type of deal. Give the wing a nudge to get it to slop around in there so you know for sure.

[crazy_aviator]

The aircraft came out of annual with the fuel tanks "refurbished" they were not leaking before refurbishment , to answer your question mag .

[mag check]

The aircraft came out of annual with the fuel tanks "refurbished" they were not leaking before refurbishment , to answer your question mag .

So the tanks weren't leaking, but were pulled, and "refurbished", then reinstalled and started to leak?
Hmmmmmmmmmm, I think that whoever "refurbished" (I'm not sure what that means) the tanks, or whoever installed them, did it incorrectly.
I would suggest having a very stern talk with the AME that worked on the tanks, it sounds like they messed up big time, and it could have been a very serious mistake. Lucky for you it wasn't.

I would also recommend that the prospective purchaser have an independant AME do a proper pre-purchase, there could be other components that were "refurbished" that could cause problems, not to mention likely aren't legal.

[Hedley]

For some reason, people think that one of these for USD$550

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/i ... essure.php

costs more than crashing the airplane when it runs out of fuel

I can only presume that most people fly aircraft that are worth
less than USD$550.

[fanspeed]

For some reason, people think that one of these for USD$550

http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalog/i ... essure.php

costs more than crashing the airplane when it runs out of fuel

I can only presume that most people fly aircraft that are worth
less than USD$550.

Looks like a great tool to help manage fuel. It won't detect a leak tho, will it...?

[Nark]

Hedley,

That's a great investment. Having spent many hours flying with one, it's very reliable.

I usually leave it on Time to Empty, and switch back to Fuel Flow to monitor my leaning guesswork.

[Hedley]

Time to Empty

Right. After levelling off, you look at your GPS and
see how long until you get to your destination. Then
you look at the fuel totalizer to see how much time
you have left in your tanks.

This is not rocket science.

With a fuel totalizer, you can also see that a small
change in the mixture setting can result in a large
change in the gallons-per-hour fuel flow.

I do not understand why people choose to fly without
a $550 fuel totalizer, or a $100 handheld GPS, but
I guess I'm not that bright.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The very first items we put in the new Husky was the complete EI engine package.

I personally would not own an airplane without it.


http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e353/ ... 020479.jpg

[C-FKLY]

Right. After levelling off, you look at your GPS and
see how long until you get to your destination. Then
you look at the fuel totalizer to see how much time
you have left in your tanks.

This is not rocket science.

Or, if you have a 430 and that unit, it will update the fuel flow page in real-time and will tell you what you'll have for fuel at your destination. 'Tis a handy little tool, and more useful at telling you what you've got in your tanks than the pesky indicators -- However, it's been said before but it won't know if there's a leak, and it's only as strong as the person that's programming it.

[crazy_aviator]

Mag check , I did have a stern talk with the ME over the fuel leak and he strongly believes that there may be a leak at the seams , likely due to age and corrosion that was cleaned up. He said the tanks were pressure tested before installation and i trust him ! Why you ask, do i trust him ? Well, that AME is ME !!!