Jerry Wagner, what not to do.

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Kitfox43

Filing Flight Plan
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Kitfox43
Check out his latest videos. I honestly don't know how this guy survives. His latest video show him landing with the fuel gauges near zero. Someone should write a book on this guy and title it "How NOT to fly" Now he's got a youngster flying with him that is picking up all his bad habits. Very Very sad situation.
 
I don’t want to encourage this kind of behavior, I’ve seen enough of him after watching a handful of videos.
 
I’m fairly certain he’s a user here. Maybe he’ll chime in with his perspective.

I will say this is the first time I’ve heard some imply aviation fuel gauges being accurate in a state other than empty.
 
TCABM said:
I’m fairly certain he’s a user here. Maybe he’ll chime in with his perspective.
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He is. He made a copyright claim against a snippet of one of his videos I reposted and linked here. I wish he spent that much effort not being a trash pilot.
 
TCABM said:
I’m fairly certain he’s a user here. Maybe he’ll chime in with his perspective.

I will say this is the first time I’ve heard some imply aviation fuel gauges being accurate in a state other than empty.
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That's just one item. His right seater, immediately upon touching down pops up the flaps, pushes the mixture and props forward and pops up the speed breaks. Theses two almost get their arms tangled at times reaching across and moving switches and levers, it would be comical if it wasn't so sad. A video posted a few days ago shows an early turn out at KOAK and the very tight/steep turn to final. Someone else made a comment about the same things on his You Tube Channel. Hard to believe the FAA hasn't contacted this guy.
 
Is this the video where he skips a bunch of pre-takeoff checks and rushes onto the runway, forcing the guy on short final to go around, and then aborts his takeoff?

Or the one where his right seater is calling out their decaying airspeed on the approach and he has no idea it's happening?

"Ninety five...

Ninety...

Eighty-five..."

"Eighty five what?"

What a clown show.
 
ColinD said:
Is this the video where he skips a bunch of pre-takeoff checks and rushes onto the runway, forcing the guy on short final to go around, and then aborts his takeoff?

Or the one where his right seater is calling out their decaying airspeed on the approach and he has no idea it's happening?

"Ninety five...

Ninety...

Eighty-five..."

"Eighty five what?"

What a clown show.
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Actually it's after those videos. It's his latest videos the last 2 or 3. Of course any of them offer something to learn from on what NOT to do.
 
ColinD said:
He is. He made a copyright claim against a snippet of one of his videos I reposted and linked here. I wish he spent that much effort not being a trash pilot.
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Haha really? That's Tarron-Bhomas grade troll.
 
Furiously googling. That was way before my time in aviation.
 
TCABM said:
I will say this is the first time I’ve heard some imply aviation fuel gauges being accurate in a state other than empty.
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They're not even accurate at empty. People misinterpret the regulation that says the E mark is 0 usable as being some kind of statement of accuracy.
 
172andyou said:
I was always taught, "believe whichever reads the lowest of: gauges, totalizer, dipstick"...
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"Gauges, totalizer, estimate," and I've still gotten backed into a corner and landed on near-fumes. I didn't post a video of it, though.

Nauga,
and a giant sucking sound
 
TCABM said:
I will say this is the first time I’ve heard some imply aviation fuel gauges being accurate in a state other than empty.
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flyingron said:
They're not even accurate at empty. People misinterpret the regulation that says the E mark is 0 usable as being some kind of statement of accuracy.
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And there are those that continue to believe that regulation OWT to mean that if the gauges read zero all the time, they're legal.

But the wording of the regulation squashes that:

§ 91.205 Powered civil aircraft with standard U.S. airworthiness certificates: Instrument and equipment requirements.​

(a) General. Except as provided in paragraphs (c)(3) and (e) of this section, no person may operate a powered civil aircraft with a standard U.S. airworthiness certificate in any operation described in paragraphs (b) through (f) of this section unless that aircraft contains the instruments and equipment specified in those paragraphs (or FAA-approved equivalents) for that type of operation, and those instruments and items of equipment are in operable condition.
(b) Visual-flight rules (day). For VFR flight during the day, the following instruments and equipment are required:
<snip>
(9) Fuel gauge indicating the quantity of fuel in each tank.

A gauge that reads zero all the time is not indicating the quantity of fuel in the tank. The lack of accuracy tolerances does not negate the rule.

The common float-driven rheostat gauges cannot be made really accurate. The shape of the wing tanks precludes it. It's why transport-category aircraft use capacitive gauges in multiple positions in each tank. But many gauges in older GA airplanes can be improved with new senders, and care taken to adjust the float travel and position. Most old senders are just plain worn out and don't read very linearly anymore.
 
Nothing recent is as good as the Jerry W lost episodes. My favorite isn’t the ILS unusual attitude, although it’s great.

My all-time favorite is the one where he departs Fullerton. He’s given the Anaheim SID, Lake Hughes transition. A fairly complex SID designed to keep you out of the way of LAX traffic.As expected (by everyone but him) he gets a vector to intercept V8 west of Seal Beach. Jerry tosses the plate book (this is before his EFB and updated avionics) into the back seat, saying, “well, I don’t need this anymore.” The controller ends up having to vector him around the whole SID.

You gotta look at the chart to appreciate it.
 
My favorite was when he was asserted that a holding pattern that he flew which was orthogonal to the assigned pattern, and with left turns instead of right turns, was "darn close" to the correct pattern. He even made a drawing showing how similar they are.

Screenshot 2026-01-09 at 4.31.32 AM.png
 
midlifeflyer said:
Nothing recent is as good as the Jerry W lost episodes. My favorite isn’t the ILS unusual attitude, although it’s great.

My all-time favorite is the one where he departs Fullerton. He’s given the Anaheim SID, Lake Hughes transition. A fairly complex SID designed to keep you out of the way of LAX traffic.As expected (by everyone but him) he gets a vector to intercept V8 west of Seal Beach. Jerry tosses the plate book (this is before his EFB and updated avionics) into the back seat, saying, “well, I don’t need this anymore.” The controller ends up having to vector him around the whole SID.

You gotta look at the chart to appreciate it.
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Pretty clear to anybody who bothers to read the chart before flying it:
HECTOR or LAKE HUGHES Transition: Turn LEFT heading 332^ for vectors to SLI VOR.
 
ColinD said:
Someone shared this link on Reddit:


VFR into IMC, zoom climb to the brink of a stall, recovers the wing drop with aileron.
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The classic Jerry moment in this video is when he almost stalls the plane and says: "This is something that I do not recommend anyone else try to do. What I use is the momentum of the plane..."

Seriously, how does this guy still have his ticket?
 
Are we *sure* this isn't just some elaborate troll to generate YouTube views? The situation seems so hard to believe otherwise.
 
shrug, who bothers to look at fuel gauges anyway. I barely look at the totalizer, old school baby
 
For those that never watch him, his videos are of short hops from his home base to Oakland, a 30 minute flight. He has a plane capable of flying in the flight levels and crossing the country but in handful of flights I watched, he never got above 6000’ or outside Oakland center area.
 
MooneyDriver78 said:
For those that never watch him, his videos are of short hops from his home base to Oakland, a 30 minute flight. He has a plane capable of flying in the flight levels and crossing the country but in handful of flights I watched, he never got above 6000’ or outside Oakland center area.
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Two things about that…

It’s amazing how he can screw procedures up on a familiar route. All it takes is a small variation, like OAK landing to the east. But even without that… one of the fun things is when he’s in the wrong autopilot mode and does one of his trips around the PFD explaining everything on it, never noticing the needle getting further and further and further away.

When he does go somewhere different is where the real fun begins. My Fullerton favorite is an example. For a later one, anyone else remember the one where he and a buddy fly somewhere and trash talk the controller for giving them simple instructions they don’t understand?
 
Dan Thomas said:
(9) Fuel gauge indicating the quantity of fuel in each tank.
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Not to belabor the issue, but if we apply this literally then a great many light airplanes are unairworthy, as their fuel gauges are intrinsically inaccurate.
 
Roger Wilco said:
Not to belabor the issue, but if we apply this literally then a great many light airplanes are unairworthy, as their fuel gauges are intrinsically inaccurate.
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Most of them will tell you whether the tank is more than half full or less than half full. For many, we can't expect much better than that, but I have fixed some systems with new senders and careful adjustments.

Much inaccuracy is due to neglect. An airplane tied down outside is moving a little if anything more than a light breeze is blowing. That movement disturbs the fuel in the tanks and moves the senders. 40 or 50 years of that and those senders are worn right out, even in an airplane with less than a thousand hours on it. Any moisture in the tank causes corrosion of the sender, affecting its grounding and therefore its accuracy. Even the tank ground straps, often made of aluminum, oxidize and develop resistances.
 
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