Fuel critical - can I avoid landing out by managing fuel to one wing only?

[Eddie Cesnalis]

Quote

Mike Koerner said: "With respect to Ed's comment, there's a significant amount of fuel in the fuel lines below the wing. Momentarily un-porting the only wing that still has fuel would not be a problem. You just need to slosh fuel over one of the tank outlets periodically to keep the engine running. But by running one tank try, you introduced a whole bunch of additional failure modes: Is the tank dry because there's a flow restriction in the line from the other wing, which is now the only wing with fuel? Is it dry because the rudder or aileron trim are misadjusted, or because you have a slightly heavy foot on one rudder pedal? In either case, the force that drained one wing first is now pushing the fuel away from the outlet port in the other wing. After emptying the one tank, can you be distracted by some other emergency and fly slightly uncoordinated for a while with the wing that still has fuel low?  When asked to "Fly direct to the numbers and expedite your landing", will you remember to slip in the right direction?"

Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems the first thing to go dry is the sight tube.  Once a site tube is dry I can bring fuel back into view with some slip. Therefore there is potentially a quantity of fuel remaining in the tank and the lines below.  Here's a question: If you drained your fuel and then installed 1 1/2 gallons in each wing would you see any level?  Can we even see the legal reserves portion when fuel is balanced between the wings?

I live in Western Oregon now and pretty much agree I can't get that low on fuel.  Once you get to no visible fuel remaining it becomes a land now emergency.  If you see nothing you can't manage to avoid unporting and you can't see the end approaching.  With remaining fuel visible on one side I am managing all of it in a positive manner as I keep it visible.  The port is inboard so I reason if I can see it my engine can see it.

[Mike Koerner]

Ed,

That doesn't sound right to me. I believe the bottom of the sight glass is at, or very close to, the lowest point in each of my tanks.

A couple of times I have calibrated my sight glasses by setting the plane level with a bubble level, draining my fuel system completely, then adding one gallon at a time to both wings, marking the resulting fuel levels on the clear plastic scales that I attached to my sight glasses. You can easily see one gallon on each side.

My personal minimum is 5 gallons of fuel remaining and fuel showing on both sides.

Mike

[Eddie Cesnalis]

3 hours ago, Mike Koerner said:

Ed,

That doesn't sound right to me. I believe the bottom of the sight glass is at, or very close to, the lowest point in each of my tanks.

A couple of times I have calibrated my sight glasses by setting the plane level with a bubble level, draining my fuel system completely, then adding one gallon at a time to both wings, marking the resulting fuel levels on the clear plastic scales that I attached to my sight glasses. You can easily see one gallon on each side.

My personal minimum is 5 gallons of fuel remaining and fuel showing on both sides.

Mike

Thanks Mike, I guess when I see the fuel return it  was all sloshed outboard.  

[FlyingMonkey]

I think six gallons is the least I ever landed with, that was at the end of a 448nm leg.  I have marks on my tubes at 2.5, 5 and 10 gallons. 5g per side is where I like to be on landing.  I would push to the 2.5g mark on each tube if doing a really long flight.  I generally make sure I have full sight tubes when taking off (22-ish gallons), and 5g per side is my minimum takeoff fuel.

The CT has fat fuel tanks, larger than any other SLSA I am aware of.  I don't see any reason except an emergency to run fuel down to the ragged edge.

[procharger]

Amen