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Still in Denial


kelty

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11 minutes ago, PTK said:

He did not switch tanks. His original post has been edited. Regardless actions to be taken are:

Low fuel condition- switch to fullest tank

Low fuel pressure- fuel pump on

In that order. Period. Certainly no WOT.

He did not edit his post.  Go back and look at all the subsequent posts where he was quoted, including your own.

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1 hour ago, Marauder said:

I'm curious if the FAA asked you to do a 709 check ride. 

That takes about a month after NTSB does their thing...when you fly with the fed Kelty ,just make sure you make a big deal out of preflight fuel and announcing switch to fullest tank.Might be a good idea to be really up on " book" fuel burns.Also ,try to get it done before you are deployed..glad no body hurt but the farmers fruit or nut trees!

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20 minutes ago, mooniac15u said:

He did not edit his post.  Go back and look at all the subsequent posts where he was quoted, including your own.

I'm not referring to his normal procedure of switching tanks at 10 miles from landing. I'm referring to the emergency procedure sequence as per POH which should also be on his checklist. He probably didn't have time to read the checklist which is why these few items need to be committed to memory and automatic. Certainly doesn't call for WOT throttle anywhere.

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7 minutes ago, PTK said:

I'm not referring to his normal procedure of switching tanks at 10 miles from landing. I'm referring to the emergency procedure sequence as per POH which should also be on his checklist. He probably didn't have time to read the checklist which is why these few items need to be committed to memory and automatic. Certainly doesn't call for WOT throttle.

I’m not talking about switching 10 miles out either.  He said, “Step 1 was to make it over the high tension power lines right in front of me, then I switched the tanks.”  You subsequently said, “He did not switch tanks…” and in a follow up post you repeated, “He did not switch tanks. His original post has been edited.”  That is a factually inaccurate claim. 

Here’s a screenshot of your first post claiming he didn’t switch tanks.  You can see in the first part you quoted from him that it says he did.

ptk2.jpg

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You should know better than to argue with Peter! His thoughts and opinions are never wrong, and they never change.

He will probably never post anything here admitting that, like the rest of us, he is human and makes mistakes.

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He did not follow the proper emergency procedure. In fact he did the wrong thing in opening throttle. The irony is, had he followed proper procedure, the engine would've most likely restarted. 

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7 minutes ago, thinwing said:

That takes about a month after NTSB does their thing...when you fly with the fed Kelty ,just make sure you make a big deal out of preflight fuel and announcing switch to fullest tank.Might be a good idea to be really up on " book" fuel burns.Also ,try to get it done before you are deployed..glad no body hurt but the farmers fruit or nut trees!

I'm curious your source for that. How much of the "thing" are you talking about? 

In some cases of 709 rides, the NTSB never investigates at all. In one I'm very familiar with, the NTSB  was still getting witness statements 2 days before the date of the 709 letter.

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29 minutes ago, N6758N said:

Restoring fuel flow to the engine should not take 10-15 seconds, ever run a tank dry?

Yes, on final approach to my home drome doing pattern flights after maintenance on my M20C.  Minimum fuel in both tanks.  Not much accuracy being delivered by the fuel gauges.  Which one was more full than the other was not discernible...

Lowering the nose on final it became obvious which one didn't have enough.

The POH may have the time expected for the return of FF.  I recall it is written somewhere...

The M20C carburetor also uses a bowl with a fuel float in it.  The additional volume between the empty lines and empty bowl may take some time to fill?

Its been a few years since this occurrence... I don't have many of the details left.

Best regards,

-a-

 

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There is a good photo of Harris Ranch airport (3o8) showing the high tension power lines and surrounding orchard land north of approach end Rwy 18.Lots of open land arround including 100 ft wide grass median strip between I5 n/s lanes next to airport.Looking at photo (wickipedia harris ranch airport) engine quit at worst possible spot considering all the good landing spots arround.Again just dumb luck no body hurt.

 

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Just now, carusoam said:

Yes, on final approach to my home drome doing pattern flights after maintenance on my M20C.  Minimum fuel in both tanks.  Not much accuracy being delivered by the fuel gauges.  Which one was more full than the other was not discernible...

Lowering the nose on final it became obvious which one didn't have enough.

The POH may have the time expected for the return of FF.  I recall it is written somewhere...

The M20C carburetor also uses a bowl with a fuel float in it.  The additional volume between the empty lines and empty bowl may take some time to fill?

Its been a few years since this occurrence... I don't have many of the details left.

Best regards,

-a-

 

I've run each tank dry in my C on separate occasions. The first was distraction, it coughed politely and I checked everything madly, no problems; when she coughed again a minute later, I saw the clock and realized I hadn't switched over, so I did. Never stopped running, maybe three coughs total [two the second time, once to get my attention and again while I was leaning down and switching over].

The second time, my fuel stop had pump problems, neither the mechanic nor FBO Manager could make the pump start, I had 3 hours to fly and 40 gallons, so I took off [this was 18 nm from my home field, which has no fuel]. My plan was to run the left tank as far as possible then switch to the right and use those 10 gallons to land. But with one additional landing and departure, it cut off very suddenly five minutes before I had planned to switch it. I was monitoring carefully, but unlike the first time there was no cough, no sputter, no surging, she just quit making noise and tipped down. After a quick switch, it took maybe 3 seconds to get running again. Didn't bother the wife as we had discussed it, as well as potential other fuel stops. There were still 11 gallons left when I filled up, having switched 5 minutes before starting my descent from 9500 msl.

Note that results for your fuel injected Mooney will probably be different. I was surprised by the different character between the two events in my C . . .

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Dipsticking at low fuel levels (10gal/tank) will show an empty tank due to the wing dihedral, specially on the M20R and M20M. Best way to asses low fuel amount is by reading the wing sight gauges. To insure the float is not stuck shake the wing and watch for needle movement. I refuel before flight if both tanks indicate less than 10 gallons each.

José

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1 hour ago, Hyett6420 said:

And there is a lovely video on you tube which i have seen of FOUR yes FOUR Atpl profesional pilots landing an Arrow gear up. It is taken from inside the cockpit and you can hear the gear horn going off all the way down the approach and they STILL landed gear up.  So please don't lecture that "professional pilots etc" because it is load of bollocks. We all make errors and as the saying goes any landing you can walk away from is a good one  

I am sure the OP here has learnt well and truly from his error of judgement.  sunt sed ea quae hominum. Are we not?  

Andrew

Everyone is capable of a mistake, it's just that sometimes the mistakes are more noticeable & painful than others.  The first several dozen entries gave much praise for a job well done and bringing praise to the fact he didn't stall/spin into the ground or he "missed" the tree trunk, and that is all fine & good, but the fact remains he ran out of fuel.  I am certain the OP has in fact "learnt well and truly from his error of judgment", but this thread isn't for him or about him anymore...it's for the benefit of the rest of us...as well as the OP's future flying.  I'm certain the OP did not initiate this thread so as to simply expose his chest to our barbs of criticism...I don't know him, but I like to think he did it for the benefit of our group's learning and, for that, I commend him greatly.

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8 minutes ago, Hank said:

Note that results for your fuel injected Mooney will probably be different. I was surprised by the different character between the two events in my C . . .

I've intentionally run tanks empty in both my C and former E to check fuel indication or stretch range (not intending to start a debate on if that's a good idea or not).  My experience is that the injected engine will generally stop with no warning, while the C typically sputters and also displays more warning in the form of a fuel pressure drop prior to stopping.

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12 minutes ago, midlifeflyer said:

I'm curious your source for that. How much of the "thing" are you talking about? 

In some cases of 709 rides, the NTSB never investigates at all. In one I'm very familiar with, the NTSB  was still getting witness statements 2 days before the date of the 709 letter.

Well in the case of off airport ,serious damage crash landing,its the Ntsb job to assign prob cause...in this case ,probable pilot error...the local gado is notified and they institute the 709 checkride.You mention a 709 ride letter being sent prior to Ntsb ruling...entirely possible..an inspector from a gado can invoke a 709 ride based on his own knowledge of an incident.The one "month" came from a local faa inspector that administers 709 check rides in  here in northern calif.He mentioned 1 month during a conversation I had during my own 709 checkride years ago..

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8 minutes ago, neilpilot said:

I've intentionally run tanks empty in both my C and former E to check fuel indication or stretch range (not intending to start a debate on if that's a good idea or not).  My experience is that the injected engine will generally stop with no warning, while the C typically sputters and also displays more warning in the form of a fuel pressure drop prior to stopping.

That is very true. There is no carburetor bowl in an injected engine to gradually empty the fuel. The bowl is like a micro reserve. Fuel pressure is only needed to fill the bowl while on injected engines fuel pressure is a must to keep engine running.

José 

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There is however,fuel present up stream of the pickup in the tank...gascolater ,lines to the fuel pump,fuel pump to mixture control unit to flow divider...As you well know Piloto..fuel injected engines don't quit cold...lots of fluctuating pressures seen giving lots of time to change tanks

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31 minutes ago, thinwing said:

Well in the case of off airport ,serious damage crash landing,its the Ntsb job to assign prob cause...in this case ,probable pilot error...the local gado is notified and they institute the 709 checkride.You mention a 709 ride letter being sent prior to Ntsb ruling...entirely possible..an inspector from a gado can invoke a 709 ride based on his own knowledge of an incident.The one "month" came from a local faa inspector that administers 709 check rides in  here in northern calif.He mentioned 1 month during a conversation I had during my own 709 checkride years ago..

That makes sense. Until the FAA has some indication of the cause of an accident or incident, there's no basis to examine the pilot, even as loose as the basis needs to be. And, in many cases, the NTSB "subcontracts" (for want of a better term) the investigation to the the local FSDO, so the FAA knows all about it from Day One.  The 30-days is probably just a generalization of what takes place in that FSDO district, especially if the ASI you dealt with suggested it's 30 days after a probable cause finding. I mentioned the NTSB interview phase was still going on 2 days before the 709 letter; the "probable cause" determination came about 6 months after the 709 ride was completed.

BTW, I haven't heard the term GADO for at least 20 years. I'm not sure there's a current FAA publication that even mentions it.

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7 hours ago, thinwing said:

Yeah ,I date my self sometimes!

:D Me too. Often.

For others who are curious - at one time the FAA investigation/enforcement/safety function was divided among different offices with different spheres of influence. In addition to the "Flight Standards District Offices," there were "General Aviation District Offices" and "Air Carrier District Offices."

At some point there was a consolidation so, except for the odd reference here or there there's not much in current FAA literature that mentions either. For example a search of the FSIMS (Flight Standards Information Management System), the FAA's Order guiding the conduct of its Inspectors and other personnel (something pilots should be at least passingly familiar with since it also talks about such things as what ASIs are and  are not supposed to do during a ramp inspection) , shows one reference to ACDO and none to GADO, although the functions of supervising air carriers and GA operations are both covered extensively.

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25 minutes ago, kmyfm20s said:

Here is an example of my wing gauge discrepancy after calibration. The biggest shocker was the stand pipes in the tanks. 

IMG_0777.JPG

 I am not sure I understand what you mean there. What do you mean by the discrepancy? It looks like the sharpie figures are pretty much the same as what is reflected on the gauge. 

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