Never again

[Richard]

How interesting that this months AOPA Pilot contains an article about the reasons we fly with full tanks, culminating with the notion that it makes us feel good and another article about more than just feeling good about having full tanks.

Chip Wright, in his article, asks why do GA pilots fly with full tanks even for short hops whereas the Never Again article demonstrates one very good reason why.

Here is another question: should an unexpected diversion due to worse than forecast marginal VFR associated with fast moving non-frontal wx be cause for nervousness when you have enough fuel for 3 or more hours in reserve? Another way to put it is should such a diversion in such wx be fully unaticipated?

 

[MauleSkinner]

AOPA has published apparent contradictions like this numerous times, both in magazines and online...one of the more memorable ones was an e-Pilot issue that warned about "phishing", and to be careful when an email requests you log on to a web page to "update" your personal information...the VERY NEXT THING they wrote was to request that you log onto the AOPA web site and update your personal information

Fly safe!

David

 

[AirBaker]

Well, there is always that 'one' situation where you need 4.5 hours of fuel for the 1 hour flight that went bad. However that's a lot of circling or several hundred miles of options in most planes...

 

[Greebo]

AOPA has published apparent contradictions like this numerous times, both in magazines and online...one of the more memorable ones was an e-Pilot issue that warned about "phishing", and to be careful when an email requests you log on to a web page to "update" your personal information...the VERY NEXT THING they wrote was to request that you log onto the AOPA web site and update your personal information

Did the e-pilot asking for the update provide the link in the email or just ask you to log in?

Because phishing succeeds by putting a bogus link in the email that looks real. You should never click a link in email asking you to log in.

But sending an email asking to log in by going to the homepage on your own - thats perfectly ok.

 

[4CornerFlyer]

Having spent over $5000 for a problematic strip and reseal of Mooney wet-wing tanks, I am careful to heed the advice of the late Wet-Wingologist Charlie Hinojosa who recommended always keeping the tanks full to slow degradation of the sealant.

Someone with a better knowledge of chemistry than I may tell us whether this advice is valid, but if I know the plane is going to sit more than a day or two, I try to leave it full.

Jon

 

[MauleSkinner]

Did the e-pilot asking for the update provide the link in the email or just ask you to log in?

Because phishing succeeds by putting a bogus link in the email that looks real. You should never click a link in email asking you to log in.

But sending an email asking to log in by going to the homepage on your own - thats perfectly ok.

Yes, it did...

by the way, please log onto giveallyourmoneytome.com and update your personal information

Fly safe!

David

 

[Skip Miller]

Here is another question: should an unexpected diversion due to worse than forecast marginal VFR associated with fast moving non-frontal wx be cause for nervousness when you have enough fuel for 3 or more hours in reserve? Another way to put it is should such a diversion in such wx be fully unaticipated?

It's all situations, as usual. If you are flying out of Montauk, LI and the weather is moving in from the north east, yes you d*** well better be nervous!

-Skip

 

[Henning]

Having spent over $5000 for a problematic strip and reseal of Mooney wet-wing tanks, I am careful to heed the advice of the late Wet-Wingologist Charlie Hinojosa who recommended always keeping the tanks full to slow degradation of the sealant.

Someone with a better knowledge of chemistry than I may tell us whether this advice is valid, but if I know the plane is going to sit more than a day or two, I try to leave it full.

Jon

It is reasonably good advice. The sealer is hydrocarbon based and formulated to resist fuel. Its greatest enemy is oxidation. The thing that goes wrong mostly is the sealer "dries out". Keeping fuel there helps, but really you only need enough fuel in them so the vapor displaces most of the oxygen/air. If you really want to go all the way with it, make a fuel "P trap" to hook to the vent tubes when you park the plane. There is thought that keeping them wet with fuel is the best, but in my rather limited experience with wet wings, I have known some that were treated in the full fuel method all their lives (mostly with 421Cs is where I've dealt with wet wings, and a couple of Mooneys and 210s), and I didn't see them faring any better than those that had been treated normally, but run regularly and always had some reasonably fresh fuel in them. Neither of those had any abnormal tank maint issues. Remember, it's not meant to last forever. Wet wing sealed or bladder, figure you'll have an issue every 20 years or so, times up, life limit has been reached, hand over cash. If you did all your tanks in the Mooney for $5000, and they did a good job, well, you got a decent deal, the prep work is a nightmare, blind contortionist stuff feeling around with purpose built scrapers you have to build yourself, sometime several per tank, sometimes you have to tape a small die grinder with a bronze wire wheel to the stick. But it's near the same cost to replace the bladders. Where I saw the real problems was with the ramp queens. The ones with varnish for fuel. 5 years on a ramp, especially in the desert, and I guarantee within a couple months if not immediately, problems. Even all metal tanks suffer corrosion and sometimes electrolysis issues.

 

[Ken Ibold]

Having spent over $5000 for a problematic strip and reseal of Mooney wet-wing tanks, I am careful to heed the advice of the late Wet-Wingologist Charlie Hinojosa who recommended always keeping the tanks full to slow degradation of the sealant.

Someone with a better knowledge of chemistry than I may tell us whether this advice is valid, but if I know the plane is going to sit more than a day or two, I try to leave it full.

Jon

Charlie was a class guy. He was the first Mooney specialist I met after I bought my basketcase 201, which I had to send to him on a ferry permit because the leaky tanks prevented my mechanic from signing off my prebuy as an annual.