CT2kflyer

Buckaroo: I fly a 2003/4 manufacture CT2k, and I had the same condition. Once, I was waiting for clearance to fly into the Washington DC SFRA, so I put my plane into a right-hand orbit for 10 minutes or so. What happened is, that my left tank was empty and my right tank had all of it's fuel shifted outboard... thus I unported the fuel lines and ran my engine out of fuel at the end of the 10 minutes. I immediately went into engine-out procedures, and looked for a field to put it down in while simultaneously going to an emergency squawk and trying to restart my engine. I got two restarts that died after about 20 seconds, but I did get some altitude out of the restarts. I got a 3rd restart about 50 feet about my emergency landing field ( which was a field with standing water between the rows of something..... it would have been a bad outcome.), and that one held. So I fly to the nearest airport about 10-12 miles away, and land. Turns out I had 7 gallons of fuel in the tanks..... but by flying somewhat uncoordinated, slopped all of my fuel into one wing-tank, and then tilted it away for the fuel line. I probably had less than 30 hours in the plane total at that time. I was fairly new to flying, and very new to my aircraft. The design of the plane, and my unfamiliarity with the fuel system put me into a hazardous condition. Since that day, I have flown my plane coast to coast, and north to south around this country. I flew to the highest airport in the nation last fall. I fly all over, but I have two specific fuel related rules I follow religiously. 1. I dip my tanks every day I fly. I know specifically how much fuel I have in the tanks before I fly......... always. I don't rely on the sight tubes at all. I look at them now and then, but I never actually use them for flight calculations. 2. I ALWAYS refuel upon landing, when 1/2 or more of my of my fuel has been consumed. When I get below 15-16 gallons, I watch what I'm doing carefully. I am not going to run myself out of fuel again. If I am going on a 2 hour flight, I'm gonna have 20 gallons of fuel onboard at take off. If I'm going on a 3 hour flight, I will have 25-30 gallons of fuel on board at take off. One time I flew from Hot Springs Arkansas, to Asheville, NC, non-stop ........ 5 + hours. You can be sure I watched my fuel like a hawk towards the end, and watched the coordinated condition of my aircraft near the end of the flight. I landed with more than five gallons, but under 10............ probably around 8-9....... but I was very aware of the possibilities. So, now you know. Don't trust sight tubes..... use them as reference to determine if there is fuel in the wings, but not how much. Dip the tanks, and KNOW how much fuel you have before you take-off. I plan using 5.2 gallons/hr in-flight on trips. I try to land with two hours remaining. I know I am overly cautious........... and I'm fine with that. I was taught never to trust a fuel gauge... it will lie to you at the worst possible time. Sight tubes do same...... for different reasons.

NC Bill: Ditto.........

The CT2k is document lacking........ in fact some of what I have is in German, not English. Glide ratio is not covered in the POH. Other sources indicate 17/1 for the CT2k, with one pilot commenting that it may be as high as 21/1 - which is doubtful in my book. I'll stick with 17/1.

I have a CT2k with the longer wing, and it's advertised with a glide ration of 17/1. In that the SW has the shorter wing, 14/1 sounds about right.