ehunyadi 0 Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 This is less about screen captures and more about what happened, but since there are two screenies, I posted it in this forum. My apologies if this is not correct. Today, I decided to take a nice, long flight from Palomar to San Jose, California outside of San Francisco in the SlikAir B1900C N190SA. It's a nice flight along the coast, usually above some inversion layer clouds, but beautiful ocean or coastal cliffs and hills pop through the clouds here and there. About half-way to San Juan, I decided to check my fuel burn and found that I was going through more of it than I had planned for. This wasn't good, as the FAR's dictate a 45 minute reserve upon landing for commercial aircraft. I pulled the torque down from a flow rate of 360 to 270 (economy cruise) and hoped for the best. To make matters just a bit more fun was the fact that ATC had cleared me for a visual approach on an IFR flight, and there were clouds down as far as I could see. I was lucky to see any blue skies at all! As I got within about 8 miles of our destination, the clouds melted away and it was clear enough to make a nice (but a bit hard; no damage) landing. I taxied to our gate and shut down the engines as quickly as I could and upon checking the fuel, found that we had JUST BARELY enough to satisfy any nosey FAA inspectors. Dodged a bullet... I need to be careful with this stuff! Link to post Share on other sites
mutley 4,498 Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 EJ. As the saying goes "He who hesitates is lost" looks as though you made the right decisions. Be careful out there! Cheers Link to post Share on other sites
allardjd 1,853 Posted July 18, 2007 Report Share Posted July 18, 2007 They say the only time you can have too much fuel is when your aircraft is on fire. On long flights I do a 10 minute fuel flow check as soon as I'm at ToC and then continue to monitor at less frequent intervals until I'm sure I've got it made. I fly with RW weather, so winds aloft can change things quickly. Glad you saved it. John Link to post Share on other sites
ehunyadi 0 Posted July 19, 2007 Author Report Share Posted July 19, 2007 I think it could be the real weather that did me in. I think the headwind became stronger as I flew, because my ground speed decreased quite a bit as well. Gotta love real weather! Link to post Share on other sites
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