Marcoola

[Guest atlantis]

Hey a little plane landed on our beach today Cessna or something, excuse my ignorance.

 

I only saw it on the news though I was in the area and could have had a look if I knew about it.

 

Apparently the pilot ran out of petrol 1km before the runway and with the aid of emergency services just fuelled up and took off again.

 

Lucky the tide was low and no one on the beach.

 

Apart from the embarrassment, Is there a penalty for that sort of pilot error?

 

 

[Guest Ultralights]

if it was a genuine emergency, then there will be no punishment.

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Penalty of death if there wasn't that beach to land on. Could have been any number of reasons why he ran out of fuel.

 

 

[Guest colt_pa22]

Most likely poor planning, the pilot was lucky he/she didn't kill anyone or damage the aircraft.

 

Never rely on fuel gauges, unless you know your aircraft well. A Beech Skipper (BE-77) had to make a forced landing in a field about 30km to the west of my town after running out of fuel on a flight from Canberra, ACT to Point Cook, VIC a few years ago. Luckily, the pilot survived the landing and the aircraft was not damaged. However he landed in a paddock full of cattle, which took to the aircraft overnight and damaged one of the ailerons. The pilot?s excuse was that the fuel gauges were reading 1/4 full, and he had full tanks when he took off from Canberra so it must be due to some other reason.

 

But apparently the pilot thought full tanks meant filling up to the tabs (the 3/4 full mark in each tank). So really he took of with ? tanks rather than full tanks and being a long flight he ran dry.

 

An even more embarrassing blunder to explain to his fellow syndicate members, I wonder what he though the space between the tabs the top of the tanks were used for?

 

colt

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

I don't even trust the fuel guage in my car. Ran out of fuel once when I had my first old Holden. Guage said 1/4. Luckily it kept rolling enough to drive into the servo. :)

 

 

[Guest Ultralights]

i do a little trip with every new car i buy, and take 2 jerry cans with me, full of course, i fill the car to the brim, then drive north till she runs dry, then remeber the distance, same goes for around town. run em dry to find out not only fuel guage accuracy, but distance you can get on a tank. not reccomended in an aircraft though..

 

 

[Guest vh-tqp]

I don't even trust the fuel guage in my car.

 

i do a little trip with every new car i buy, and take 2 jerry cans with me, full of course, i fill the car to the brim, then drive north till she runs dry, then remeber the distance, same goes for around town. run em dry to find out not only fuel guage accuracy, but distance you can get on a tank.

you'll be surprised how quickly things can get out of calibration-even with new cars. last year, my less than 3 year old commodore, on one tank of fuel, the 80km warning light came on, and I used 40km of that before i filled it. next tank of fuel, engine died, fuel gauge indicated 220km to empty, 1/4 full. took it to holden (under warranty), picked it up, they said they recalibrated it. further invesatigation revealed they just reloaded software, and they told me to bring it back if it ran out of fuel again! I thought great, I hope they upgraded the operating system to windows 3.2 when they reloaded the s/w. So i filled it right to the top, and it took more fuel than what was indicated. then i took it back, this time they changed the sender unit

 

 

[Guest atlantis]

When the gauge in my work van hits 1/4 I know I only have ~15kms left, for some reason it just drops when it gets to that level. In another work vehicle I ran out of petrol in the servo driveway, I just left it in second and used the starter motor to power me over the line.

 

On the topic of fuel tanks, I had a mini bike that had a reserve tank. That would be a handy feature for a plane.

 

 

[Guest Glenn]

Some do have reserves.