Fuel starvation (Baron near Senekal)

[Funflier]

That is some serious damage. Glad the pilot is ok.

[Whirly]

Hi Aviators,

The pilot explained in detail, so lets dont nock him it can happen to anybody once.

So I take it, eurosurfer was the pilot? Glad he is OK.

Whirly.

[Mike Wissing]

Hi Aviators,

The pilot explained in detail, so lets dont nock him it can happen to anybody once.

Did I miss that post?

[jimdavis]

Hi Aviators,

The pilot explained in detail, so lets dont nock him it can happen to anybody once.

Hell, Flyp, nothing happened to the pilot - he crashed the aeroplane by being in a hurry and taking a fat chance.

Apply Chalkie's second rule - hurry up slowly.

[87Juliet]

Hi Aviators,

The pilot explained in detail, so lets dont nock him it can happen to anybody once.

Hell, Flyp, nothing happened to the pilot - he crashed the aeroplane by being in a hurry and taking a fat chance.

Apply Chalkie's second rule - hurry up slowly.

No Uncle Jim, he crashed the airplane because he ran out of fuel and didn't have his finger pulled out...

[Mike Wissing]

Hi Aviators,

The pilot explained in detail, so lets dont nock him it can happen to anybody once.

Hell, Flyp, nothing happened to the pilot - he crashed the aeroplane by being in a hurry and taking a fat chance.

Apply Chalkie's second rule - hurry up slowly.

No Uncle Jim, he crashed the airplane because he ran out of fuel and didn't have his finger pulled out...

Why did he run out of fuel?

[Grog]

Hell, Flyp, nothing happened to the pilot - he crashed the aeroplane by being in a hurry and taking a fat chance.

Apply Chalkie's second rule - hurry up slowly.

No Uncle Jim, he crashed the airplane because he ran out of fuel and didn't have his finger pulled out...

Why did he run out of fuel?

Post #7- someone else assured him that the talks were full

[Christopher]

<someone else assured him that the talks were full> even though the gauges disagreed!

[fly1981]

Does the Baron have the same issue as the Seneca II/III? The filler cap of the Seneca is towards the wingtip and because of the dihedral you can still have a lot of fuel even with a dipstick reading zero. According to one report[1] you can't get an accurate fuel level when dipping tanks with less than 75% fuel remaining.

So you have to trust the fuel gauges, even though their reliability is questionable.

I believe the standard solution is to fill the tanks as often as possible. But if you are away from home without options for fuel and someone drains your tanks then it might be hard to detect.

[1] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 026656.pdf

First of all, it is not possible to use a dipstick to check the fuel level on the baron, nor any other twin I have flown( accurately) . The baron has two fuel gauges, one on each inboard wing, and one in the cockpit for each wing tank. If the pilot assumed it was filled up, you could open the filler cap, and you would see fuel, would probably take around 5 seconds. Situations like this, if it was indeed fuel starvation, are completely inexcusable.

[Vogoff]

First of all, it is not possible to use a dipstick to check the fuel level on the baron, nor any other twin I have flown( accurately) . The baron has two fuel gauges, one on each inboard wing, and one in the cockpit for each wing tank. If the pilot assumed it was filled up, you could open the filler cap, and you would see fuel, would probably take around 5 seconds.

But what happens in a situation where one has to fly to a remote field and you can't fill up? You calculate you have two hours of fuel remaining but if someone steals half of your fuel overnight then how can you verify what the fuel gauges are saying?

I guess the moral of the story is you sometimes have to trust your fuel gauges. Or rather: trust, but verify by regularly recalibrating. Easy enough to do by looking at the gauges before filling up and estimating how much fuel will be required. After filling up subtract the amount of fuel added and then you have an idea of how much the gauges match your reality.

[Lood]

IIRC, my V35B Bonanza was the same. Once a certain amount of fuel has been burned, you cannot dip to measure the fuel quantity anymore, as there would be no fuel visible, looking through the filler neck. I do seem to remember that shining a flashlight into the tank, from outside and at an angle, it was possible to see if there was fuel in the tanks, but there was no way to know how much.
That said, my V-tail was the only aircraft I owned over 20 years that had properly working and very accurate OEM fuel gauges.

Also standing to be corrected, but I'm sure that all of my Twin Comanche's tanks could be dipped until they were almost empty, just like the single Comanche.