Fuel Exhaustion (long but valuable)

As others have mentioned you certainly have a set of cojones to nmake this post.

I will say early in my flying career I made a similar mistake with a better outcome but the possible outcome was scary nontheless. i followed the exact same chain of decision making you did and afterwords thought "how stupid of me". Why does this happen so frequently in aviation when it is so easily avoidable. Then I did it again 25 years later. Simple fact is we are human and we make mistakes. If we are lucky we do not become statistics.

Great post and thanks. Just reading it will probably prevent at least one person on this forum from doing the same thing in the near future.

Good reminder

TK - thanks for sharing this - a very useful reminder for all of us.

5th year anniversary of landing in the boonies! Good job!

Always visually check fuel.....lessons learned

Garage Guy said:

C172's have left/right positions on the fuel valve too, and it might be a good idea to use them.

A friend of mine had an off airport landing caused by fuel exhaustion in his C182. The line boy where he last refueled had left a gas cap loose. (He will never let anyone else fuel his plane ever again.) Fuel siphoned out in flight. Fuel selector valve on both, as usual, meant fuel siphoned out of both tanks. No sign that anything was wrong until the engine quit; the low pressure kept the fuel sender floats high, and you can't see the top of a Cessna wing from the cockpit.

I believe Cessna added the 'both' position early on as a safety feature to avoid unporting the selected tank in a slip, but it has its own safety shortcomings.

--Paul

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I had a similar experience with a C-182 back in the late 80's. I was at Clark AB in the Philippines flying jumpers at the Aero Club. We would fly with "minimum" fuel to haul the most jumpers so had to top off after each flight. After 4 flights where I fueled the a/c myself and preflighted each time, nature called. When I returned, the line boy told me he refueled and put 15 gallons in, what I needed for the next flight to 10,000ft.

I did a quick pre-flight (but not climbing on the wing to check fuel) and briefed the next load of jumpers. As I was climbing, caught a slight smell of fuel, the fuel gauges showed fuel 1/4 full for both tanks. After landing I saw a blue streak over the tail.....the line boy did not put the gas cap on correctly and they both were off, held in place by the chain! The fuel siphoned put and pulled the bladder up, jamming the sender at 1/4 full. I landed with no fuel left when the sumps were checked!

I have never flown without visually checking the tanks since then to verify fuel is sufficient and gas caps on correctly.

Running out of fuel can happen to anyone and is ALWAYS preventable!

Story for another time is how a friend of mine while we were students at USAF Test Pilot School ran out of fuel in his Plane, lost all electrics and did am great landing at night, no moon, overcast, in the high desert between George AFB and Edwards AFB. TPS Commadant had some tough questions the next school day! My friend graduated and ended up flying a very high profile glider.....must have been his fuel out experience! Lol

This is a great thread and a reminder for me to reevaluate my own pre flight fuel quantity procedures.
Flying your own airplane certainly helps in knowing more precisely how much fuel will be used for a given flight.

"Flying again" reminded me of the one time I ran out of fuel on a flight.
It was in the mid 80's too and flying a C182 for a skydiving outfit.
We had just gotten an old 182 and only a couple of the pilots had been flying it.
I flew a C 206 a C 205 and a Pilatus Porter most of the time. On one of the busy Saturdays I showed up later in the day and got flagged over by the C182 pilot. He said he needed a break and asked me to take up the next load in the 182. I told him I had not yet flown a 182 and he assured me it was no different from a 206 or whatever. Oh, while he explained this to me he was sitting in the cockpit of that 182 with the engine running and we traded spots never even shutting down. He assured me that there was enough fuel for another load before I needed to refuel.
Take off and climb were indeed just like the 206 and it certainly handled like a Cessna until it quit at about 7000 feet.....bone dry.
I was more mad than scared at that dumb sh** who believed what someone else told him about fuel.
There is always an airport nearby when you fly jumpers and my glider training came in handy that day. Ego bruised and all else in good shape but it took me 30 years before writing the story.

Ernst, did you punch the guys lights out or just break his fingers so he couldn't fly? Yes, you should have checked the fuel, but the dumb sh$$ should not have asked you to fly a plane with low fuel.

One of the biggest mysteries to me about flying technology is why isn't there a fuel gage that is accurate. I know the tanks are different in every plane, but they have made it work in cars and boats - not even close in planes - at least GA planes.

jtrusso said:

Would the GPH number really be higher during takeoffs than 9.6? My reason for asking this question is this, according to the POH (C172, O-230-E2D) at 2,500 feet and 2,700 RPM's the fuel burn is 9.6GPH. Would the fuel burn during takeoff be any higher than this? If so, how? Other than increasing the RPMs, which you can't do, how can you increase your fuel burn? I understand that the POH number accounts for leaning, standard conditions, perfect engine, etc, but could that really be more than 1 or 1.5 GPH? It doesn't seem to me that should make the difference between a 9.5 and 14 GPH fuel burn. If I'm missing something here please fill me in. (And I mean that honestly, not being sarcastic. As I said before this is making me question my flight planning so I'm really trying to learn here.)

During takeoff from my sea level airport (Santa Monica) I usually only get 2600 RPMs, but I have a cruise prop on my plane.

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I think you are missing some things. He states that the aircraft is a 180HP conversion. That should put his FF during TO at around 16 GPH. If he was unleaned at 1500 feet he would have been burning probably around 14 GPH at full throttle. Leaned out he still would have been over 10 GPH. With all the TO's and climbs he did that day it sounds like his overall fuel burn was right where it should have been.

For the original poster I really appreciate you having the courage to post the story. The RV community is overall a incredible resource with people willing to provide amazing amounts of help in almost any situation. I think that part is one of the best things about owning a RV. On the side of negative things about owning a RV there often seems to be a cone of silence around accidents and incidents. Sometimes we get some very good information and other times we get virtually nothing or a posting that information will follow later but it never seems to come. "There but the grace of God go I" is one of my favorite phrases. The key to prevent many accidents is timely information on prior events. I often hear don't discuss the accident out of concern for family members if it turns out really bad. If I make another bone head mistake(I have made a few!) that turns out really bad I want everyone to discuss what I did. I don't want any one to follow in my footsteps and end up hurt. Its the only area where I think the RV community could really improve.

George

Tony, I missed this thread the first time around. Thanks for posting it originally and for linking to it recently.

I get nervous flying long[er] legs. This thread reminded me to stay nervous.

I can't trust the fuel gauges in my RV-8. I bet they're just as accurate as everyone else's.

There were few things I felt I NEEDED to add to my plane after buying it. A fuel flow instrument was on that short list. Even still, I felt I had to tune it to read high.

This thread reminded me to stay nervous.

+1 on Glen's post. I too missed the post the first time around and I don't think my fuel gauges or flow meter are any more accurate than Glen's. I pay close attention to what the clock and the gauges say and choose not to push my luck.

Thanks for posting your experience. That took courage but the reminder is good.