I am not sure when or why I started sniffing my fuel tester, but yesterday it paid off. My Dad and I were picking up the Pacer after a longer than usual annual due to scheduling conflicts and some repairs that needed to be done. It had been in and out of the maintenance hangar for the last several months and I had left it with about 6 gallons in each wing tank.

When I sumped the right tank, there was no visual indication of water in the fuel tester, but when I smelled the fuel tester, there was no fuel smell.........., I dumped the tester and sumped again....still no smell to the "fuel" and still no visual separation of fuel/water. I then sumped the gascolator on the firewall into the tester that had some "fuel" from the wing tank and the noticed a separation of fuel/water in the tester. I took about ten full fuel tester samples out of the right tank before I started getting fuel in the water that was coming out of the tank. Had I not smelled the tester, I would of thought it was clean fuel coming out of the tank, not straight water. In this case, with the airplane sitting outside/inside with little fuel in the tanks for several months, I knew there would be some water in the fuel, but that much??? The left tank only had a quarter inch or so of water in the bottom of the fuel tester, so I must have a fuel vent that is letting water in?

Oh, and thanks Dad for flying the airplane that had all the water in the gas home

I have gone out to fly with Dave Younkin (180/185 pilot extraordinaire) and one of the things he always tells me to do during the pre-flight is to smell the fuel. I thought he was nuts when I saw him first do it, but it makes sense. Not only are you looking for no smell, but Jet A also. Stranger things have happened.

Greg-

I always sniff for exactly this reason, and I love the smell of 100LL.

I wonder if this is a "pacer" thing. On my old pacer, and my brothers pacer we get the same thing. We both put new caps and seals on, but its still the same thing. Right wing it takes multiple samples to get the water out damn near every morning, but left wing shows no sign of water 99% of the time even after a heavy rain or leaving it set with less than full tanks. The 12 and the other planes we fly dont have this issue, only the two pacers. Never have figured this one out, we just make sure we do really good sumps every morning before we fly.

I never thought about sniffing the tester, but I learned long ago that getting one tiny sample is no good and I always run multiple samples and try to get atleast a cup of gas out of each sump and the gascolator.

the other thing I do is poor a bit on your hand and the water will bead up and the fuel will dry ( use this teqneek when I got a cold and cant sniff)

I burn car gas & it's kind of a vague browninsh-tint clear-- my smeller doesn't work very well (which is sometimes a good thing) and it's hard to tell visually if it's gas or water. Seems like blue 100LL would be better in this regard.

Have sniffed every fuel sample since I started flying. Smells good. Have never gotten any water though in 16 years. Your story is a good reinforcement of why it's necessary.

It took about 8 months to sell my old C170 after I bought my current airplane. It sat on the ramp for a couple months, then in a hangar. I kept the tanks about half full, and got some condensation in the tanks in the hangar. I always sumped it several times to be sure I was down to the good stuff. On the ramp, besides condesation I got a lot of water in the tanks due to the poor design of the ragwing 170 gas caps and frequent applications of our "liquid sunshine". Had to sump & sump & sump before finally getting 100% gas. What a PITA. Of course, it sat for quite a long spell between flights-- flown regularly, one or two sumpings would do the trick.

When i first bought the champ, someone told me to really sump it in the winter, the nose tank will have water.
Sure enough, the first time flying all day in the cold, with the cabin heat on all day, and then into a cooler hangar, in the morning the nose tank had half a sump full of water. Im sure it goes for any plane with a nose fuel tank, the heat will make condensation, and freeze if you dont sump it.

That was the first time i ever got water out of it, even after rain storms at osh or anywhere.

Tom

Scolopax wrote:I always sniff for exactly this reason, and I love the smell of 100LL.

Nothing smells better than avgas. The old 80/87 was my favorite. I tell ya if a woman wore a little if that behind the ears, maybe mixed with a little diesel, she would certainly win my heart over!

I always smell the fuel samples....smells great and provides one more check like you found out!!!

When I was logging, the guy I worked for made us fill up the diesel tanks on the equipment every night for two reasons.

1. We were ready to roll in the morning (obvious)

2. A full fuel tank has little to no room for condensation to build in it because it is....full of fuel. No room for air means no room for air with moisture.

I guess the moral of the story is fill your tanks for storage. This doesn't help if the fuel already has water in it and it then separates, however.

Somebody told me that this is why the proper way to use a fuel tester, is to 1st pour a small amount of known fuel in it, so that if what you drain off is water, it will be immediately obvious.

I spose the buzz you get off sniffing it is a good reason to keep going though

Good save

Always sniff!

You guys are nuts with your smelling the samples. I don't do that. I sump them, look at them, and take a taste.

On rentals I even smell the oil dipstick too. One time there was so much burnt carbon/oil on it I refused to fly. Black as night oil, yuck.

YES!


But I wouldn't do it when she's lookin'.

Sniffing is ok but don't drink the blue juice!

It really burns going down.

I've never sniffed my fuel tester!