I too try not to overcomplicate this issue.
On preflight I visually check the wing tanks and when they are filed to one inch below the neck, that counts as 3 hours. When they appear half full it's two hors and with the fuel just on the bottom below the filler cap it is a mere one hour. When I can only see fuel by rocking the plane , it's 30 minutes. The header tank is my 1 hour reserve for all instances. One can use the first half hour in theory, but the pucker factor is bigger than it is worth doing. However. It gives you little knowing a number of gallons unless you know the exact fuel consumption of your engine. I always calculate flight time by assuming 6 gallons/hour. I make a note of my start time and how much fuel was in the tanks taking off. That way the wing tank gauge can't fool me as it did ones (claiming I was out of gas when there was plenty). Hartmut To: [email protected] From: [email protected] Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2010 09:48:09 -0400 Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Fuel Gauge I have a pair of wing tank float gauges (if you want them let me know) with corks which I removed and replaced with flat, vented caps from Skyport. I didn't like them because they only told you about the top 2 gallons of the 8 gallon tank and the wind resistance of the tubes cost me 2 miles per hour (as checked over 100 hours of flying). My coupe will fly longer than my bladder will take, so it doesn't make much difference. Rule of thumb, "when the nose tank gauge goes down, I come down. When the cork is at the bottom, I have 4 gal. of fuel left and that is my emergency reserve ONLY. Fred -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected]; [email protected] Sent: Mon, Apr 19, 2010 6:26 am Subject: Re: [ercoupe-tech] Fuel Gauge Rick, Skyport sold a gauge that was part of the 9 gal fuel tank cap. You'd look out at the wing and try to read the glass tube which was incorporated into the fuel cap. It was something like the header tank float system. I purchased one -I was not happy with it. Prof. Ed _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail: Free, trusted and rich email service. https://signup.live.com/signup.aspx?id=60969
