Over the
past five to six years, I have been writing about some of my flight experiences
of the past 40 or so years. I have used
this blog as the recording medium. The goal of this writing is to share these
flight experiences in an effort to help fellow pilots avoid senseless and possibly
fatal flight accidents.
Let me offer
an example of how not to do it. Going
back to 1967 in Syracuse, NY, where I was attending medical school, I needed to
go to Boston for a quick visit. To
accomplish this I rented a Cherokee 180, marginally IFR equipped for the
trip. Three fellow students joined me. Weather forecast was VFR, with some possible
IFR. This latter point is key.
My flight
experience at the time, about 400 hours of VFR flying with some IFR
instruction. We left Syracuse under
beautiful VFR conditions. Some scattered
clouds and a west (tail) wind of 20 to 30 knots. This is important. Flight distance about 260 miles, which meant
a flight time of just under 2 hours at
an airspeed of 120 mph (107 knots).
Landing was planned for Hanscom Field, about 20 miles west of
Boston.
After takeoff
we climbed to 7500 feet, with a cruise speed of 150 mph (133 knots), thanks to
the tail wind. Sounds good, but
wait. After passing Albany, it started
getting cloudy, scattered to broken clouds.
This caused concern, especially as flight service advised possible
marginal VFR for Boston at our ETA. So
we continued until just west of Worcester.
Flight Service advised that Worcester was going IFR as was Boston. So, what to do? As I was not a fully trained or certified IFR
pilot, I need VFR conditions to fly legally and safely. I decided to do a 180 degree turn and head
back to Albany and Syracuse. Fuel gauges
showed somewhat more than ½ on both sides. That should be plenty except for the strong west wind! Ground speed was now of the order of 80 mph
per hour (70 knots). Oh my. Do we have enough fuel to get to Albany or
Syracuse? Well, in the interim, Albany
was now IFR, also. That left Syracuse as our final alternate/destination as it had stayed VFR. But, would we have enough fuel to make
it?
Since I am
alive to write about it, you know we made it. Yes, but barely. As we approached
Syracuse, the fuel gauges were hovering around E. After taxiing in and shutting down, I looked
in the fuel tanks and didn’t see any gas.
OUCH!
The moral of
this story. Always have enough fuel
aboard to fly another hour after landing as a safety measure.
*www.operationsafeflight.blogspot.com
