Pop quiz...Fuel mgmt

flyer170 · Post by **flyer170** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:09 am

Pop quiz..... You are flying on a cross country trip at 6,500 ft, fuel selector is on both, you look out and see fuel streaming out of the quick drain on the right wing.
You can't set it down for awhile, no place to land and for reference the ground is 600 ft msl.
What do you do. This is in a standard 170A, standard tanks, and lets assume you can't reach the quick drain in flight.
This question was asked of me by the instructor who checked me out in the 170.
Bob

N1478D · Post by **N1478D** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:22 am

Ok, I'll take the bait.

Switch to the left tank instead of both. Watch the fuel gauge, and if the fuel is cross feeding over to the right tank with the leak . . . rip the new headliner away from the crossover line and clamp it. ? ? ?

Post by **GAHorn** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:54 am

I'd guess switch to the tank with the leak in order to maximize the amount of useful fuel. (Also avoid crossfeeding fuel into the leaking tank.) After the tank runs dry, switch to the remaining tank. Avoid operation on Both. (Declare an emergency, though because you'll need to cover yourself for landing in violation of the aircraft limitations.) File a NASA blue form. My 2 cents.
Your instructor was an old L-19 pilot in VietNam, right? This is a battle-damage-control question.

zero.one.victor · Post by **zero.one.victor** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 5:08 am

How about:
Switch the fuel selector to left, apply right aileron & left rudder to fly somewhat straight yet get the fuel away from the leaky drain as much as possible,fly the left tank dry,then switch selector to both,apply left aileron & right rudder to try to crossfeed as much fuel as possible into left tank.
Upon exhausting fuel,curse whoever dreamed up this scenario just before a hideous screaming death.

Eric

N1478D · Post by **N1478D** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 5:52 am

After not being able to sleep trying to figure this out - I got back up and want to change my answer.

Since the right tank is vented, one could fill the left tank.

So, since I have lots of altitude, I would pull the throttle to idle. Set up for best glide, left the right wing up to let the fuel from the right wing fill up the left wing, with the fuel selector still on both. Once the right tank was empty or the left tank was full, change the selector to the left tank. If there was a problem with cross feeding back to the right, I would try to stop it at the cross over line.

CAS · Post by **CAS** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 2:50 pm

I'm with George on this one

Select the leaking tank.

Go to full power to get the most use of the fuel available in the leaky tank.

Head for the nearest airfield.

Adopt as low a nose attitude as practical (this will probably involve decent) as the fuel outlet to the engine is (I think) near the centre of the tank and the fuel drain is at the rear. This will require careful adjustment of attitude as the tank nears empty to get the maximum amount of fuel from the tank to the engine.

When the leaking tank is dry, select the other tank.

I don't think there will be any major crossfeed problems unless you have BOTH tanks selected. The interconnecting breather/vent pipe is above the normal fuel level. It is probably also a good idea to have the good tank/wing low so that any cross feed is to the good tank.

Declare an emergency if you look like running out of fuel

How's that for an answer

David

flyguy · Post by **flyguy** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 3:57 pm

quote: What do you do. This is in a standard 170A, standard tanks, and lets assume you can't reach the quick drain in flight.

I read an unbelievable story about a guy who had a problem with the gear on a two-ten and he told how he, the sole occupant of the airctaft, was able, after putting the auto pilot to a safe heading, to crawl back and do lots of impossible things and got the gear down. Adrenaline will make you super human or a super liar.... depending on your story.

A couple years ago, I was ferrying an Ercoupe from Flying Cloud Minnesota to Abbeyville, Louisiana. We stopped for an overnite in Ft. Dodge, Iowa. It was blowing and cold as heck. The lineman helped us get transportation and asked if we wanted him to top the tanks. I gave him the go-ahead and we beat it to the motel. It was much colder the next morning and in my haste to get out of that icy wind I did a barely acceptable preflight. Shortly after becoming airborn , my wife, Deana, spoke in a very excited voice, "You are losing fuel from this tank over here"! I leaned over and sure enough gasoline was streaming out ot the cap on that side! Now you are not supposed to be able to do it, but the lineman had inadvertently put the fuel cap on backwards! ( The Ercoupe has a special fuel transfer systen that uses ram air to feed the main tank from the wing tanks. Thus there is a little hole that forces the air into the wing tanks and when you need fuel in the main tank you just turn the valve on and up comes the gas. The caps have uneven tabs that are supposed to prevent putting them in wrong but I surmise that a dark, icy night made the fueler less than observant and he forced the cap on with the hole to the back!)

I, being long of arm and a partially frozen brain, thought I might be able to reach it and turn it around without having to go back to the airport and land in that severe cross wind that we had just left from. Deana and I switched places (another story!). I slid the window down, leaned out the opening and attempted to reach the cap. At 85 mph, the wind chill must have been -50*. Two attempts, almost losing my glasses the first time, of freezing my hand in blowing fuel mist, I did the smartest thing and returned to land, cross wind and all. No problems at all on the landing (crosswind gear jumped right to work!) but as for the inflight repair of the fuel system --- no sucessful magical fixes for that little problem!

Now back to the leaking sump drain question: my solution might be nearly the same as George's but it didn't cost me any loss of sleep to modify my procedures to include taking out my contraband pocket knife:o and whittling up a plug made from some available material, boot leather, corner off my boot heel or another contraband item, a matchstick

and reaching out the window or partially open door and plugging up the leak then looking for a suitable landing site.

Remember "be ready for Murphy"- - - (had airline managers and legislators acted upon prior events that should have taught important lessons, we might not have had 9-11, eg.. You bring out a puny little knife to hijack my plane and I point a .357 into your face, things will change rapidly).

N1478D · Post by **N1478D** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 4:05 pm

flyguy wrote:quote:

Now back to the leaking sump drain question: my solution might be nearly the same as George's but it didn't cost me any loss of sleep to modify my procedures to include taking out my contraband pocket knife:o and whittling up a plug made from some available material, boot leather, corner off my boot heel or another contraband item, a matchstick and reaching out the window or partially open door and plugging up the leak then looking for a suitable landing site.

Remember "be ready for Murphy"- - - (had airline managers and legislators acted upon prior events that should have taught important lessons, we might not have had 9-11, eg.. You bring out a puny little knife to hijack my plane and I point a .357 into your face, things will change rapidly).

You probably didn't read the instructions before you put garments on a gator either

Gary, you can't cheat and plug the drain

flyer170 · Post by **flyer170** » Sat Dec 07, 2002 12:38 am

Well here is what I was told........ Switch to the right tank (the leaking one) and use as much fuel as possible before switching to the left tank.
Figure out where you can fly to and set it down.

I said I would switch to the left tank first and that's when we had the discussion about fuel mgmt

A few months later I put in new quick drains.

New thoughts from this discussion: David's idea about going to full power using the leaking tank (I kind of liked that one). A number of manuvers with the aircraft to try and drain fuel into the left tank. Cutting up various items of clothing and pieces of the aircraft to use as plugs

George..... The instructor that quizzed me flew power lines in his youth and is now a check pilot for Northwest on the new Airbus. Between him and his dad they flew just about every type aircraft that NW had.
At one time they owned several different aircraft including a Cessna 140 and a Cessna 170... He really liked the 170

He has a Diamond badge from soaring also.
Bob

Post by **GAHorn** » Sat Dec 07, 2002 6:39 am

Bob, ask your instructor if he flys one of the Airbuses that comments on his intelligence upon landing.

(Hint: The later models of the aircraft have an autoland feature that levels the aircraft off as it touches down and a computerized voice comes over the cockpit speaker advising the crew to retard the throttles to idle by announcing "RETARD! RETARD!"

David Laseter · Post by **David Laseter** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 2:10 am

OK - Cross Country with NO YOKE!
So you're 170 has been modified for Alaskan Bush and you're on take off from my 800 ft crk bed sheep camp strip at 2500 ft.. You're bouncing over grape fruit size rocks and coming to the end as usual. Lowering the flaps at the last instance lifts you right up over the alders bushes and you think, allright made it again. But at that moment your realize your yoke want pull back or push forward. What in the world? The Ailerons do work thankfully, just no up and down. The plane is in fairly level flight. You pull back to the point that you think something's going to break. Jammed!

You're 70 miles from the 1000 ft, side of a hill, gravel driveway at your friends house. This is were you'll get gas, because you only have 5 gallons in each wing. Calculated for strip length and distance to and from.
You stick you're head out into the bubble window and look back at the tail feathers. Whoops, there it is! A 1 inch alder tree jammbed right between the stabilizer and elevator. Jammed hard!
Whach ya gunna do now?

N1478D · Post by **N1478D** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 4:20 am

Well, your trim should still work. And, your flaps will slow you down. Throttle is altitude, it would be hard to kick it out of a slip on landing just right without the use of the elevator. So, an airline type 3 mile descent into a nice 3 pointer????

56alpha · Post by **56alpha** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 8:13 am

Joe , good answer i agree with every thing you said,especialy the 3 mile decent! One thing to remember/know is the trim will work in reverse if the stabiliser is jammed.

Jay

CAS · Post by **CAS** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 11:12 am

Flying on trim and rudder only works! I have seen it done.

This is a true story.

A long time ago, in a land far, far away (PNG) a pilot (not me!), running late for an early morning flight, did a very perfunctory pre-flight, jumped in, started up, taxied to the runway and opened the throttle. The C182, with pilot only on board, lept into the air and at about 200' the hapless pilot discovered that he had no elevator or aileron control - the control column would not move in any direction

He declared an emergency and, using rudder, trim and throttle only, did a very careful circuit and landed.

Upon landing, the shaken and, later, somewhat stirred pilot discovered that a short bolt had been inserted into the control lock hole to stop the controls moving while the aircraft was parked. IT WORKED!

The bold did not have any sort of flag on it.

I guess the moral of this story is
DO YOUR PREFLIGHT CAREFULLY, even (especially) if you are in a hurry.

David.

zero.one.victor · Post by **zero.one.victor** » Sun Jan 05, 2003 4:44 pm

I do a walkaround for only the first flight of the day,generally speaking,but I always do the old "CIGARS" check before every flight. That control lock would've been caught if he'd only "stirred the pot" with the stick (yoke).

Eric

The International Cessna 170 Association