Trip Report: Oxford EGTK to Bremen EDDW, IFR in a PA32

LFHNflightstudent wrote:

I think this deserves a thread of its own. It is something I do pretty consistently, when the stutter starts, even though you know it’s coming it always remains a bit stressful ;-) in particular for the unsuspecting passengers ;-)

It may depend on the type of aircraft and fuel system. Will continue on that in the other thread.

On vintage Mooneys, I was suprised it was recomanded to run dry tanks for max range in POH/AFM, things have changed since 1960s

I need to try dry run on the ground at 2200pm & 1000rpm, while flying it should be easier to pickup with prop windmilling but the risks are no longer the same: I will need an airfield sitting under & sunny VMC with obvious caveat to have plenty of altitude (but not a lot neither: NA engines may not air-restart above 8kft, don’t ask me how I know, and someone flying turbo at 20kft, it will be a long 15min wait before lights comes back, maybe they need to switch their MASTER OFF and save the battery or windmill their alternator on fast speeds ), funnily enough, I have done load of engine shutdown on/off in motor-gliders, one was a failed restart but flew like pure glider to an airport, one was restart at 300ft agl with go-around, but I am still scared to try that in SEP, surely never with pax

I have landed in field after running out of fuel once, I don’t think running dry would have changed the outcome that day, the aircraft restarted every time at best glide speeds but it still needed fuel in the tanks not in the gauges, silly of me: the C172 range with 60kts head winds is not much, the L/D goes from 1:2 to 1:20 depending where you go, the good news is that field landing into 30kts winds is a piece of cake…

Picture on the topic: the M20C had engine off & prop near feather on this picture, the glider is Sisu 1A, first 1000km world record (it’s hanging in Dulles museum near Rob Harris Astir than flew to FL500)

Running one tank empty

highflyer wrote:

I would not dare to empty the tank, the engine could go out and not start again.

I think this deserves a thread of its own. It is something I do pretty consistently, when the stutter starts, even though you know it’s coming it always remains a bit stressful ;-) in particular for the unsuspecting passengers ;-)

Thanks for the writeup, and glad to hear it come good after all that searching

With a 55% power economy cruise, the aircraft will do a TAS of 130kt at FL100. At this power setting, it will burn 12 USG/h or 46 L/h.

Unfortunately you didn’t manage to get DA42 for this trip. You’d get 160 KTAS at 12 USG/h of Jet-A1 at FL100. Going a bit higher to FL160 you’d get 170 KTAS at 12 USG/h or 175 KTAS at 13 USG/h.

On running the tanks dry, I think it’s a useful thing to experience at least once.

In a previous job, the aircraft we flew with the payload we carried we often had to run outboard tanks dry to ensure full fuel usage (typical sh*tty piston twin gauges). In that aircraft the first indication was a low fuel flow caution, which essentially is the same thing you discovered albeit without a caution light. We reckoned we had about 4 seconds to switch tanks once that light came on before the engine started to falter, although as you found out even after it falters, it tends to come back fairly promptly once tanks are switched.