Fuel Gage Odd?

[Cwalsh7997]

Hey guys I just wanted to get your opinion because in my F I still have the old fuel gauges and I've looked in my tank before and the fuel looks to be almost at the bottom of the tank but then my gauges read about half full so I'm not sure if I should trust those or not?

[carusoam]

The way to trust is to first verify...

Empty it, then fill it a few gallons at a time. Compare the readings to reality....

What you may be seeing is typical of the geometry of the wing.

Getting the FF/totalizer gauge is a great second piece of information.

Best regards,

-a-

[Bob - S50]

We have a J and it takes 7 gallons before there is any below the fuel cap.

 

Bob

[Dale Logsdon]

Don't rely on your fuel gauges. Make a fuel stick that you can manually check fuel quanity.

 

Made mine from a wooden paint mixing paddle and marked with a Sharpie. 

 

I never leave the ground without "sticking" the tanks.

[Andy95W]

Don't rely on your fuel gauges. Make a fuel stick that you can manually check fuel quanity.

 

Made mine from a wooden paint mixing paddle and marked with a Sharpie. 

 

I never leave the ground without "sticking" the tanks.

+1

[gsxrpilot]

Don't rely on your fuel gauges. Make a fuel stick that you can manually check fuel quanity.

 

Made mine from a wooden paint mixing paddle and marked with a Sharpie. 

 

I never leave the ground without "sticking" the tanks.

 

The factory fuel gauges are pretty much useless. And I certainly wouldn't take off without positively knowing how much fuel is in the tanks.  I kept to about 2.5 hours of range until I got a fuel totalizer.

[FloridaMan]

+1 on the above. The fuel gauges are worse than useless because they can lead you to believe there's fuel in the tank when there isn't. Even if you replaced those with modern digital gauges, you would still have the notoriously unreliable senders in the tank. I would adopt a policy of not flying without your takeoff tank at the 25 gallon tab.

My plane has the dial gauges in the tanks and those are pretty accurate, even in flight. I like the confidence they give me to look out the window and know there's fuel in the tank.

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