After reading topics involving full fuel, just wondering


On my plane with long range fuel, I probably top it off once every 3 or so years, otherwise it’s fueled maybe half tanks (req fuel with 1hr reserve), seems to me the planes happy place is couple hour hops

Curious about your idea of the plane's happy place being only a couple hours

Just personal preference, just from what I’ve seen lots of floatplane missions are normally more around a hour and change

With mine and the more spartin non carpeted walls etc interior it’s just not somewhere I want to sit for the full extent of the planes tanks shy of needing to move her somewhere far

It's just as easy to fill the top half of the tanks as the bottom half, just saying.

Mapleflt wrote:It's just as easy to fill the top half of the tanks as the bottom half, just saying.

I hear ya


I know it’s different, but got used to work where we also burn fuel and usable runway to haul extra fuel

For me landing with 1hr reserve is the target, beyond that is performance and economy lost

The only time I have to much fuel on board is when I'm "on fire" which tank-fully hasn't happened yet.

When I fuel I fill er up, 80 gallons most of the time, unless I have a specific mission. Having said that, for local flying, I like the tanks under half. The plane really performs well and it’s fun to drag it in and out of strips. I’ve heard it’s better for the bladders to keep them full. Makes sense to me, but screw it. I’ll replace them an extra time if need be.

The flexibility of long range tanks is great, I’m able to fly non stop into the backcountry and land with half tanks, that’s about perfect.

For local flying in my C180, usually an hour or a bit more in duration, I generally have about 40 gallons on board.
I gas up after each day's flying, replacing what I burned.
I use mogas, fueling out of cans at my hangar, so it's just as easy to do it this way.
A couple buddies that I often fly with, both avgas users, have bigger tanks than mine,
they usually fill up (or most of the way up) every few trips.

For flying off pavement, I fill up all the way, saving a little bit of time in my week makes a difference and it is especially nice to have the big tanks for taking advantage of cheaper gas at one place or another.

I wish I had long range tanks. I would still probably fill her up every time. It is better for the bladders and saves time in the long run. Less time stopping for gas. When I fly locally I can often get 3 flights averaging 45 min to 1.5 hours. I don't fill up after every flight but I am mindful of keep the tanks full fuel for bladder life. If I am flying into a short strip or where DA is a concern - I like to fly light and will carry less fuel.



Josh

Topped for long cross-country (3-4 hours). Otherwise keep it at about 2.5 hours. Better for short field, off airport, the occasional inadvertent overload , aircraft just feels a lot more sprightly, better economy. To do an hour flight with full tanks just feels like I've thrown a bunch of concrete blocks inside for no good reason.

I run a fuel flow gauge so top it up every half dozen cycles or so just to reset full tank calibration in case I've lost track of incremental fuellings.

I use 100LL in my plane, and the price varies more than $2.00/gallon ($5.79 - $8.20/gallon in this area). When I need fuel, I tend to stop at one of the cheaper airports (my home drome is one of the more expensive places to buy fuel). While there, I fill up all 4 tanks so I can reduce the operating costs of my fun flying. I typically fly alone with little to no baggage, so full tanks aren't a problem. Full tanks give the plane over 8 hours of endurance at economy cruise. My personal endurance is quite a bit shorter. When planning longer trips or when planning to fly with a bigger load, I burn the fuel down to a reasonable compromise.

Cessna 180K with 88 gal wet wings and 84 useable. I only fill up a few times a year when I'm going someplace or when I come across a place with a deal. I don't like carrying the weight when I'm just poking around. I'm also deathly afraid of fire, and so I figure less fuel is risk mitigation (to a point of course).

I typically add 30 or 40 gallons at a time. I always keep at least an hour of useable fuel in the tanks... except that one time I didn't and the airplane took 77 gallons. That's 7 useable gallons on an engine that runs about 11-12 gal an hour. Never again.

But, related question for those of you who don't consistently top off your tanks... how do you really know how much fuel you have?

I don't have a fuel totalizer or anything other than stock Cessna fuel gauges. But I did mark a 1" wooden dowel in 10 gallon increments for my aircraft. It's accurate to within a gallon or so, and I dip the tanks on every preflight plus every time I top off the tanks.

I also track all my fuel purchases on a spreadsheet. This allows me to track my fuel burn in gallons per hour and average cost per gallon over the past 14 years. Most expensive gas ever was $11/gal in Tok. I only bought enough to get to Whitehorse. I later heard that's the tourist rate and there's a deal for people who know enough to ask. Cheapest fuel I ever bought was $3.15/gal in Sherman Texas back in 2016. I filled it up then. I suppose I could total up the entire fuel cost over the past 1366 hours of flight, but of course that would violate one of the cardinal rules of aircraft ownership! In any case, it's been worth it.

^ that

Marked wooden dowel

Even with a super high resolution totalizer or sensing system, I’d still stick the tanks

No long range tanks on the 180 so it sees a full 60 gallons often mostly because I don't want to have to put fuel in before every kick around flight.

The R182 is meant for travel, and we typically are doing longer trips with 2 aboard so it gets the full 92 gallons before we depart home and wherever fuel is cheap. We'll plan accordingly and run it down a bit before giving scenic flights with 4 aboard.

The Cub we have now and the long wing Pacer we used to have both have Dodge 61 gallon tanks. I think between the two planes they were full maybe 3 times ever? That's a lot of weight in those airplanes, and they fly better light. Aluminum tanks so no worries with bladders. Truth be told if I had the decision to make now I'd say 20 gallons a side is really plenty and if I needed more I'd carry bladders inside. Might feel differently if I was flying interior AK.

One of the problems with the big tanks is even with a calibrated dipstick you can't even dip the last 5 gallons per side - carrying over an hour of fuel you can't accurately measure is not ideal so we end up flying with a lot more fuel than we need. On the scale of problems to have not a terrible one, but something to consider.

NineThreeKilo wrote:^ that

Marked wooden dowel

Even with a super high resolution totalizer or sensing system, I’d still stick the tanks

+1

Yes, totalizers are nice (I have one). I think "Trust, but VERIFY" is kinda important with fuel.

FWIW I don't have long range tanks. I just suck it up when I have to buy expensive gas, and land every 3 hours or so (using my bladder timer).

I rarely depart with less than all 88 usable onboard. Always necessary? Nah, but my goal in life is not to end up having Juan Browne or Trevor Smith facepalm over my apparent lack of fuel planning and I’ve never wished I had less fuel.

CParker wrote:I rarely depart with less than all 88 usable onboard. Always necessary? Nah, but my goal in life is not to end up having Juan Browne or Trevor Smith facepalm over my apparent lack of fuel planning and I’ve never wished I had less fuel.

Never took off and wished for better performance?

88g is almost 530lbs

With my runs performance is often more of a factor than 88g max endurance is

Realistically, 80+% of my takeoffs are from controlled airports with 10k foot runways, my average flights are between 3 and 4 hours round trip, and I burn between 20 and 24 GPH all the while. I fly into bravo and charlie airports on business frequently and I'd rather tanker fuel than buy their $9 gas.

The 10-20% of the time I'm camping with my family it's still 2-3 hours round trip into the backcountry, takeoff on the return is with partial fuel of course and I do appreciate the improved performance then.

my fuel caps placards say 35 inside and 40 outside or 80 total
how is yours 88 or are mine really too ?