douglassmt
Well Known Member
An interesting thing happened this morning that validated my original training - imagine that. I ordered some fuel while preflighting and a new line guy came to fuel me up. I had about 18 gallons on board. I told him to fill them to within an inch or two from the top. He did his thing and left. Should have taken on about 42 gallons. I normally glance at the fuel gauge on the truck but did not this time.
I was taught to ALWAYS visually check the fuel in the tanks as it's the easiest thing to do to prevent a major cause of aircraft falling unscheduled from the sky. So I do. Every single time that I don't fill the tanks myself, I open them to check fuel level and also always sump newly filled tanks after giving the new fuel a few minutes to settle. Visually checking fuel levels always seemed a tiny bit obsessive but easy to do and a good idea in theory.
When I opened the left tank to check fuel level, it was about 9 inches low, probably holding about 12 gallons. Hmmm. Right tank was about 6 inches low, probably holding about 22 gallons. Hmmm again. Bells going off in cranium. Wow, that is the first time that ever happened - how could this happen, something so easy to get right didn't get done right? Now this was a new line guy, new to my plane and it was in the shade so it was a little hard to see the fuel level. I'm not bashing him because that isn't the important thing, but making the point why it's important to do what I (and probably most of us) was trained to do. It can happen and it did happen, which means it can happen to you.
I called him back and asked him how many gallons he'd given me. 16 gallons he says. I show him the levels and we top them off together giving me another 24 gallons!
Now, I was only going for a short flight and would have been fine. Even if I was going on a long flight my EFIS would probably have pointed out the discrepancy between the float level readings and what I told it were now "full" tanks. Probably. Not good enough.
I was taught to ALWAYS visually check the fuel in the tanks as it's the easiest thing to do to prevent a major cause of aircraft falling unscheduled from the sky. So I do. Every single time that I don't fill the tanks myself, I open them to check fuel level and also always sump newly filled tanks after giving the new fuel a few minutes to settle. Visually checking fuel levels always seemed a tiny bit obsessive but easy to do and a good idea in theory.
When I opened the left tank to check fuel level, it was about 9 inches low, probably holding about 12 gallons. Hmmm. Right tank was about 6 inches low, probably holding about 22 gallons. Hmmm again. Bells going off in cranium. Wow, that is the first time that ever happened - how could this happen, something so easy to get right didn't get done right? Now this was a new line guy, new to my plane and it was in the shade so it was a little hard to see the fuel level. I'm not bashing him because that isn't the important thing, but making the point why it's important to do what I (and probably most of us) was trained to do. It can happen and it did happen, which means it can happen to you.
I called him back and asked him how many gallons he'd given me. 16 gallons he says. I show him the levels and we top them off together giving me another 24 gallons!
Now, I was only going for a short flight and would have been fine. Even if I was going on a long flight my EFIS would probably have pointed out the discrepancy between the float level readings and what I told it were now "full" tanks. Probably. Not good enough.