[Bob Axsom]

There are a lot of threads currently about the need for greater flying skills needed by average pilots on single engine private airplanes. Low fuel is one of the causes of accidents and the pervelant thinking is this should be impossible but I assure you it is not. On the following trip home from the 1991 AOPA convention in New Orleans I had two occasions to sweat the low fuel problem. At that time I had just under 1600 PIC hours. Maybe this actual case will be of some sensitizing value to a low time pilot.
...

04L's IFR departure reservation was for 11:06 AM CST so we had to wait for a while at the airport. Another waiting pilot had a weather fax of the U.S. Roughly, it showed solid potential storm areas from New Orleans to Maine and spotty activity to the west with heavy concentrations in the vicinity of El Paso, Texas. That was consistent with the information I had received from 1-800-WX-BRIEF. While we waited a King Air came in from the west bringing some people to watch the Saints football game. The pilot told us that storm clouds were building to the west but you could still circumnavigate them at 14,000 feet.

When we first called the tower we were number seven for departure and the crowd grew as we waited. This was definitely not a "wait until you are number one before calling the tower" situation. Airplanes were clustering at intersections on both sides of the parallel runways. When our number was first called we could not gain access to the runway but within five minutes the Cherokee-six blocking our way was gone and we were right behind him. We just made our "departure reservation plus 20 minute" window. Shortly after takeoff we turned to the west on our way to Austin, Texas.

After flying through clouds and being vectored around storm cells across Louisiana and half of Texas we reached Austin. When we descended beneath the clouds and spotted Lakeway Airport, we cancelled IFR, Squawked "1200" and called Unicom for airport advisories. We were down to a couple of thousand feet above the ground when the Unicom operator came back with some surprising information. Their storage tanks had been taken out of the ground and they had no fuel available. I had no desire to go through the awkward process necessary to get back in the IFR system.

The WAC chart showed several airports with fuel in the area. The first one we tried couldn't be reached because of the low clouds. The ceiling looked better to the east and I saw that the Georgetown Airport had NDB "GUO" on the field. A lot of people run down non-directional beacons and the associated automatic direction finding (ADF) equipment but I think they are valuable navigational aids. It was nice to be able to dial 332 on the ADF and home right in to the airport.

Our plan was to fly to El Paso where we had reservations at a Holiday Inn with free airport pick-up. When I called flight service to get the weather and file my IFR flight plan, the briefer was almost overwhelming. I got the impression that he couldn't understand why some fool with anything less than an F-15 would even bother calling him. He grudgingly condescended to tell me what to expect to the west. Tornadoes were forecast, along with severe thunderstorms topping 58,000 feet, and baseball size hail. I had to regroup a bit and talk over our options with Jeanine. It was decided that since it was still daylight and it didn't look bad locally, I would cancel our motel reservations, file IFR and go as far as it looked safe to go. We took-off and headed south to pick-up our airway (V-306) but I never activated the flight plan. The sun light was getting weaker and to the west I could see the clouds extending up six times as high as we were going to fly. I decided this would be a good opportunity to turn around and take Jeanine to visit Killeen, Texas. I had spent several months there over the past two years working on a system for the Army at Ft. Hood.

Bob Axsom

 

[Bob Axsom]

Low Fuel 1991 Part 2

The next day I obtained my clearance to Ft. Stockton, Texas from Gray Approach and we departed in "dawn's early light". After flying in the clouds for a short time we broke out on top in the glorious early morning sunshine. As we continued our climb, what I saw gave me confidence that we wouldn't have any weather problems we couldn't handle.

As we approached Ft. Stockton we appeared to have close to three hours of fuel left. I called Flight Watch and asked for the weather at El Paso, Texas. I was told that it was clear with unlimited visibility but there was a head wind of 11 Kts. Based on this I asked Albuquerque Center to extend my flight plan to El Paso. As we flew along I was aware of the insidiously growing difference between the true airspeed of 130 Kts on the airspeed indicator and the ground speed being reported on the DME. Suddenly, over the barren land far south of Carlsbad, New Mexico I had to go to full power and the best rate of climb speed to maintain our 10,000 ft altitude. At this altitude the best rate of climb speed is under 76 Kts. Considerable time was required to get out of this area of strong down drafts. It is possible that I shouldn't have tried to maintain 10,000 ft but I was doubtful that we could get it back if I yielded to mother nature. This and the ridge lines ahead convinced me to hang on to what I had. Once we cleared the down drafts, their cause became apparent. The true airspeed was shown as 130 Kts but our ground speed was varying between 70 Kts and 74 Kts.

When Albuquerque Center cleared 04L down to 8,000 ft, I announced "04L has a minimum fuel condition and I would like to remain at this altitude". This request was approved. When I switched to the left tank for the last time we had an estimated one hour of fuel remaining. I planned to go to an alternate if I wasn't within gliding distance of El Paso when the left tank went dry. I was handed off to El Paso Approach on 119.7 MHz. An obvious "Old Hand" controller came on and cleared us straight in to runway 26 left. At this point the DME "time left to reach destination VOR" was occasionally incrementing instead of decrementing. When the left tank went dry there was a runway off to the left at 10 O'Clock. We had an estimated half hour of fuel left and the DME was showing 26 minutes remaining to the El Paso VOR. The El Paso International Airport is a couple of minutes beyond the VOR. The only airport on the WAC chart in the direction of the visible runway was called Fabens. I told the controller that I didn't have enough fuel to continue on to El Paso but I had Fabens in sight and was deviating to that airport. He cleared me to Fabens and gave me a vector that looked right.

When we were well into our descent to the airport the controller came back on the radio with the announcement "04L I don't think you are going to Fabens; I think you are headed for a place called McGuire Ranch but it is not marked on our display." It was not marked on the WAC VFR chart or the Jeppesen Low Altitude Enroute IFR Chart #13 either. I requested the distance and direction to Fabens, and he replied with "26 miles" and a southwestern vector. That was too far and McGuire Ranch was going to have to be our landing spot. The controller continued "04L I don't want to talk you out of anything, I'm sure the folks at McGuire Ranch will be able to take care of your needs." That was good to know, especially since I no longer had a practical option. I thanked him, told him our landing was assured and that I was canceling IFR. He responded "cancellation received 04L, squawk 1200".

It was a good landing. No matter how tense things get I think all pilots probably evaluate every landing at some conscious level on their personal scale from "crash" to "good". As good as the "good" landings make you feel, You tend to forget all but the really bad ones over time. I got out of the plane on that wind swept plateau and told Jeanine to stay inside while I tried to find someone. The only signs of life I saw were a couple of cows and some "all muscle and mouth" dogs. There were three houses. I walked to the nearest one and knocked on the door but got no response. I walked to the second and knocked on the door. A dog that appeared to be a German shepherd came toward me in tense contemplation. I tried to look unconcerned and knocked on the door again. It seemed to work, the dog relaxed, lifted his leg and wet down one of the porch posts. No one answered my knock at the second door either. I went to the last house expecting the same kind of response but a cute little girl about as tall as my knee leaned against the inside of the screen door and said "Hi". Then her mother came to the door and asked if she could help me. I told her about the low fuel situation and she said "That happens", "When ever the winds start blowing out here, people run low on fuel". She told about a couple who ended up a few hundred feet short of the runway one year earlier. They were on their way to California to see their new grandchild and got caught by the wind. They flew by the runway once to check it out and couldn't make it back around to land. She helped me get fuel from their tank and asked only that I pay whatever it is worth; she didn't want to take advantage of me. It was worth a lot to me but I gave her a nominal amount and I assumed dry tanks since the pump did not register the volume transferred.

When we took-off I vowed I would climb to 10,500 ft and say nothing to anyone. However, as I neared cruise altitude I tuned in to 119.7 MHz and the same mature calm voice was busy routing and alerting traffic. After a while I said "El Paso Approach, Cherokee 04L". without a pause he responded "Welcome back 04L" and asked me if we had been taken care of okay. Once he determined that we were not about to fall out of the sky, he asked how it had all been handled. I told him of the good treatment and some of the mechanics of how it had been handled. There is no doubt that he was storing away information to help the next westbound flier who gets caught short on fuel in the strong West Texas winds. He asked if we would be landing in El Paso and I told him "No, I don't want to show my face around El Paso for awhile". He chuckled understandingly at that, and assigned 04L a squawk code for flight following. The event was over and we were back to normal flying.

The wind kept trying to keep us from reaching home almost all the way back. The Redbird labored across New Mexico and half of Arizona before we refueled again north of Tucson. On our way again we passed over Gila Bend, then at sundown we crossed the Colorado River by Blyth and reentered California. The earth beneath us was black in the shadow of the mountains, only the river was visible. The sunset was the most beautiful I have seen but the photographs I took could not capture a worthy image. The scallop in the black silhouetted mountains known to everyone in Southern California as Banning Pass was easily visible more than 50 miles away.

Bob Axsom