I'm a sniffer after reading an article that suggested it. However, I will say this: it seems that the dye that is in 100LL these days is less than it used to be. 20 years ago, when you took a sample, there was no doubt that it was blue. There are times now that I really have to get light on it to see a blueish tint. In fact, just last week the sample looked clear, but was confirmed with a sniff and second sample/sniff.

No, mogas stinks. I am probably the exception here. I have never found water in my gas. Here in the Pacific NW I would have thought I would have.

G'Day

It's a Maule. No condensation because of suspended tanks and air insulation all around all four tanks, except where the tubes attach.
If the gas cap seals are good (they perish with time, or people replace caps with wrong ones) then it is extremely rare to find water in the Maule system.

maules.com wrote:It's a Maule. No condensation because of suspended tanks and air insulation all around all four tanks, except where the tubes attach.
If the gas cap seals are good (they perish with time, or people replace caps with wrong ones) then it is extremely rare to find water in the Maule system.

Thanks Jeremy, I never knew that. Never stop learning.

Cheers

No one taught me to sniff, but I always sniff.

One of my flight instructors told me you don't really need to take samples of your fuel here in Arizona every day you fly, you just wont see water. I'm glad I listened to my gut and kept sampling....I have had water in a sample here on an old rental 172. Yes it's rare here, but I'll keep looking and sniffing.

It does seem like the refinery is cutting back on the Blue Dye in our fuel. Sometimes the only way I can make the sample look blue is to hold it against the blue sky...or maybe I'm going color blind? Anyone have a trick to see confirm the blue dye when you cant really see it?

I have 70+ gallon tanks in my 182. I don't keep them full most of the time (but do make a point of it occasionally to keep the bladders healthy), and have never seen water in Colorado except when I briefly kept a different plane tied up outside.

The mantra says that condensation is the culprit...but it never made a lot of sense to me. If moist air has water content between 1% and 3% of the mass at saturation, and the volume of air is something around 40 gallons, then in the the worst case scenario where the temp goes from foggy at 85F to 32F every night, the volume could, at worst, yield a cc or so ( 0.2 teaspoons). If this happened every day, it would take about 8 months to add up to a cup. Every day...from hot n muggy to freezing.

My short-lived, outdoor-storage water-in-the-tanks issue went away as soon as I replaced the seals on the caps, and has only re-appeared once in decades since from one rare prolonged flight through heavy weather. The old seals looked fine, but were several thousandths of an inch thinner than the ones I replaced them with. I found the same thing on my current 182.

What about other folks? Have you found water that was definitely from venting moist air and condensation? Hearing "...yes, it happens..." would get rid of my skepticism.

I am a sumpnsniffer too, but purely out of a drilled-in habit...it's important to me more because it forces me to spend more time on the pre-flight (which has, on a few occasions, been critically important), rather than being from any actual experience I have with water in the go juice.

Yes, I sniff out of habit. I also mix the sump samples from the right , left and gascolator to look for any separation. Yes, I sometimes try the fuel in the palm sampling method too. It was the way I was taught. Never ever any water in any of my fuel in Alaska, but in Florida you have to watch what is settling in your tanks.

I also use a chamois each time I fill from a can. I have also never seen water in the chamois in Alaska, but have in Florida.

GR