Which fuel tank to select for T.O. and Landings?

This is a great post and great advice from 15 years ago!!! Bottom line is know the fuel system, know the plane. Figure out how YOUR system works and how the plane reacts. I cough my right tank when I am on long trips to make the math easy. I know my engine will keep running!! So take you plane out and on the ground run it up to 2400 rpm now turn off the fuel. When it coughs go to left tank, will it keep running? If it does cough the right tank over a landing area and go to left, if no problems then you have a good system to rely on. I have never had my engine quit when coughing a tank, I can switch to left with no problems. I have taken off with less then two gallons in the Right tank (Climb to 1,000 ft), landed with same. If I know I am down to 1-2 gal in right tank avoid long steep climb and prolonged nose down on final. I do have a fuel flow that is accurate to .1gal for a tank of fuel but still do old school fuel management in case I loose power.
DENNY

MoJo,
Take off the right wing root fairing. Is the bottom of the fuel gauge below the fitting in the tank? If it is there will be fuel trapped in the sight tube that will always be there giving you a false idea of the amount of fuel in the tank.

skywagon8a said:

MoJo,
Take off the right wing root fairing. Is the bottom of the fuel gauge below the fitting in the tank? If it is there will be fuel trapped in the sight tube that will always be there giving you a false idea of the amount of fuel in the tank.

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Nope, all is as it should be. I’m thinking it is because my airplane also came from Northern Maine like gdafoe’s in post #35, and did the same thing.

When I am on a fuel tight trip, I first burn 30 minutes off left then 30 minutes off the right. Then 1 hr off left then back to right and note the time to run it dry. If I don’t change anything, I now know the time left in the left tank.

I’ve yet to see my lying gauge lie again, but I haven’t really tried to recreate. The set up for that flight was two non critical fuel flights back to back with no exact fuel management except a general knowledge of how much total fuel/time should be left. Somehow a bubble of fuel was held in the gauge, and acted just like fuel in the tank. I was reluctant to repeate the story until I read post #35.