Fuel Follies

Youre alone in your Lancair Evolution single-engine turboprop. You have just refueled at Chicagos Midway Airport and are headed to Denver, which your computer says is 788 nm away. The weather is good. The flight planning youve accomplished says it will take 3+15 and 121 gallons of the 170 available with the tanks filled. On startup, you reset your fuel totalizer to 170 gallons.

Thursday, July 20, 2017 at 12:00 AM ET

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Key Takeaways:

Pilots can encounter dangerous discrepancies between anticipated and actual fuel levels due to inaccurate fuel totalizer calibration (K-factor), tanks not being truly filled during refueling, and miscalibrated sensors.
Factors such as unlevel ramps, specific wing tank designs, and cautious FBO personnel can lead to less fuel being in the tanks than expected, even after refueling.
It is critical for pilots to verify actual fuel capacity, ensure fuel system calibration is accurate, and always trust the most pessimistic fuel reading when instruments disagree to prevent in-flight fuel exhaustion.

See a mistake? Contact us.

You’re alone in your Lancair Evolution single-engine turboprop. You have just refueled at Chicago’s Midway Airport and are headed to Denver, which your computer says is 788 nm away. The weather is good. The flight planning you’ve accomplished says it will take 3+15 and 121 gallons of the 170 available with the tanks filled. On startup, you reset your fuel totalizer to 170 gallons.

While ATC keeps you down low longer that you would have wanted, you’re soon at cruising altitude and your instrumentation predicts you’ll have 35-36 gallons over the destination airport. So far, so good.