How Low Do You Go?

[Skids Up]

Running out of fuel is the only thing you can't come up with a good excuse for!!!

[Reddog]

Always remember: the two most useless things to a helicopter pilot, fuel in the barrel and altitude above you.

[MINI]

The only time ya can have too much fuel in an aircraft is when your on Fire :shock:

 

Have a good day......Mini...

[WTF]

I have sat in the hover until I have read 7lbs on the guage on all the B206's I have flown. I am comfortable to 15lbs min, but it is nice to know that it will run to 7. Hopefully never to be used and you would want to avoid excessive manouvering.

Better to know while waiting in a 1ft hover than guessing that it might go to 14lbs or less.

[Reddog]

WTF

 

That sounds like practice bleeding to me.

 

Why not just respect the limits and land with 20 minutes remaining. TC came up with that after a lot of people died proving that they couldn't be trusted to land with sufficient fuel on their own.

[cap]

Reddog ------ with all due respect to you and the folks at DoT/MoT, I've never yet needed their assistance in person or on paper to determine when I was low on fuel. May I suggest also, that the vast majority of pilots, past and present, have and do use their assh*le to determine their "comfort level" in that regard. After you are around for a while and actually see how much a low fuel level is, then you find that many times your "comfort zone" matches or possibly exceeds that of the manufacturer or MoT. My 10 gal gas jug for my lawmower reminds me how little that is every time I fill it up. Right or wrong, for many, they have to "break out into a small sweat" at least once or twice before they say to themselves " now THAT was the last time....no more assh*le.....ENOUGH!". Those that push it past that point, usually come to a moment where they say to themselves "Sh*t!" .....and then do it.

[Sisyphus]

Apparently there is a trend to use the end of the digestive tract to compute both gross weight and fuel consumption. The result of using this part of the anatomy to think is excrement.

 

The use of fuel consumption tables, actual calculation of fuel consumption, comparing the rate at which at which indicated fuel decreases with published consumption figures, visual inspection of actual fuel remaining are better and more professional ways of doing this.

 

Profanity, even when feebly altered with a '*' or an '!' is still profane and is highly disagreeable.

[Reddog]

Well cap, my rectum can't tell fuel from scotch. I'll bet people are really careful when they smoke around you. They could be in for a nasty surprize.

 

I prefer to use more scientific methods of determining fuel levels, fuel guages, fuel flow guages, fuel flow charts, time pieces, calculators, you know that kind of thing and always land with enough fuel for TC and the wife and kiddies.

 

I feel pretty safe in assuming that your employer doesn't pay extra for you to break the regs just to find out what your rectal comfort level is.

[beltdrive]

my favorite question........u really think u have to go for fuel now???..........

[WTF]

Thanks for the headsup Dad's. Doing OK so far and not planning to run out of fuel. I have yet to flame out a machine and the LOWEST I have let one run to is 7lbs indicated.

 

Regardless, please explain to me how you decide you have exactly 20mins reserve available in your 206? I have flown (like many...) zillions of the **** things and all are grossly different. There are also engineers who like to fool with fuel loadings and I have heard plenty of comments along the lines of "when you have 10 USG left you actually have 15-20, 'cause we zero the guage with 5+ gallons in there..."

 

I am not advocating everyone do this but since there is no foolproof 100% accurate way of determining your fuel remaining, it makes for an interesting observation.

 

I used to love the old B47. Take a broomstick and fashion a dipstick. 100% foolproof way to determine fuel remaining.