[fishermanpaul]

Another non-critical "situation" from me today..

Departed on tabs from Coventry, landed at Earls Colne to pick up fp Snr, and then on to a fantastic lunch at the Crab and Lobster in Bembridge.

Start up at Bembridge shows a vacuum pump failure. Call to engineer says bring it back VFR (lovely day so no worries)

Bembridge, via Seaford for a nice run along the coast, back to Earls Colne to drop off Dad.

Then back to Coventry. Working out fuel and time airborne and run-ups etc, I figured I had about 1hr 40 - 2hrs fuel left with a 50 mins hop to Coventry remaining. No worries, wx looking ok and Wellesborne a short jump away.

Back to Northampton, made contact with Cov Radar and was offered an SRA with IFR "priority" et al... Normally "oh yes" but with BKN018 and no AI it's a no, sorry.

Then "Right-hand orbits north of Dracote due IFR traffic".

25 mins later "erm Cov, G-xx, orbitting near Draycote", "G-xx We hadn't forgotten you, continue orbits due IFR traffic(... nice ATC person gave more info...)"

5mins later as I'm looking at Pooleys for Wellesborne's opening times "G-xx continue towards left base, expect further hold"

"Continue towards left base and, erm, any idea how long the hold as I will need to divert to Wellesborne in about 10 minutes due fuel, G-xx"

"G-xx in that case, report final no 2 and would appreciate if you could keep it tight"

Landed safely, taxiied to the pump and put 180 litres to bring back to tabs. Quick calc says I had about 9 usg left so about 45 mins flying time. :) No worries

Then was chatting to CFI as we put the aircraft to bed and he pointed out the c.5usg unusable fuel... so make that about 20 mins flying time max. His final words were "sleep well!"



Huge amounts of pilot error there combined with several other cheese holes... with hindsight I can almost read the AAIB report. Another one out of the luck pot into the experience one. :oops:

[KNT754G]

25 minutes orbiting is, quite simply, unacceptable.

As a private flight you have equal priority as the commercial jets and ATC should have fitted you in way earlier than that.

If ever you think you are eating in to your critical fuel reserves there are three options open to you.
1) tell ATC you are critically low on fuel, precede that call with PAN PAN (*3)
2) divert to nearby airfield which is not going to hold you up
3) precautionary landing if nearby suitable field (in slight desperation, but DON'T wait until you are about to run out of fuel.

[fishermanpaul]

Coventry's hands are slighty tied in that they need Birmingham to agree an airways departure so they do have to hold IFR aircraft blocking the runway to get that tiny slot that Brum give them.

No arguments from me that a 30 minute hold is unacceptable!

[Irv Lee]

[quote='fishermanpaul']Coventry's hands are slighty tied in that they need Birmingham to agree an airways departure so they do have to hold IFR aircraft blocking the runway to get that tiny slot that Brum give them.

No arguments from me that a 30 minute hold is unacceptable![/quote]
don't understand this "have to... block the runway" bit - what's that about

[Flyin'Dutch']

[quote='Irv Lee'][quote='fishermanpaul']Coventry's hands are slighty tied in that they need Birmingham to agree an airways departure so they do have to hold IFR aircraft blocking the runway to get that tiny slot that Brum give them.

No arguments from me that a 30 minute hold is unacceptable![/quote]
don't understand this "have to... block the runway" bit - what's that about[/quote]

This is the result of the arrangements between Coventry and B'ham.

Apparently B'ham will not give a departure slot until the aeroplane is ready to depart; as Coventry has no taxi-way to the hold and has to backtrack their departing traffic this means that the runway is blocked, sometimes for some time.

[Irv Lee]

[quote='Flyin'Dutch''][quote='Irv Lee'][quote='fishermanpaul']Coventry's hands are slighty tied in that they need Birmingham to agree an airways departure so they do have to hold IFR aircraft blocking the runway to get that tiny slot that Brum give them.

No arguments from me that a 30 minute hold is unacceptable![/quote]
don't understand this "have to... block the runway" bit - what's that about[/quote]

This is the result of the arrangements between Coventry and B'ham.

Apparently B'ham will not give a departure slot until the aeroplane is ready to depart; as Coventry has no taxi-way to the hold and has to backtrack their departing traffic this means that the runway is blocked, sometimes for some time.[/quote]
sue for costs beyond 'reasonable'

[Timothy]

But if an emergency is called they will just jolly well have to unblock it.

[Keef]

Sounds like they need a bit of "parking area" in a suitable place.
That is nothing short of ridiculous.

[KNT754G]

Letter of Agreement between the two units in serious need of a revisit - together with a risk assessment and/or Safety Case!

[Gerard Clarke]

All of the above comments seem very sensible, but a question for Paul, if I may: your narrative suggests that you did not load fuel at any of the stops en route. Apols if I am misreading that. If no fuel uplift, was there a particular reason for that? This is not a barbed question and I am not implying that you are a fuel-numpty. I am genuinely interested in the decision making.

[Tall_Guy_In_a_PA28]

Huge amounts of pilot error

I would not say that. For a start, 5 usg of unusable fuel sounds excessive for any light aircraft. My Cherokee has about 0.5 usg unusable so I would check the handbook if I were you.

You held for as long as you were comfortable and when fuel started to become an issue you recognised it and spoke up to ATC.

There is, of course, no harm at all in filling the tanks (W & B permitting) whenever a good opportunity presents intself.

[Keef]

I would not say that. For a start, 5 usg of unusable fuel sounds excessive for any light aircraft. My Cherokee has about 0.5 usg unusable so I would check the handbook if I were you.

There are differences in tank design and capacity between PA28 variants.

Our Arrow, with the big tanks, has 60 Imperial gallons of usable fuel, and 4 gallons of unusable. I think that translates to 72 USG usable, 5 USG unusable.

[Rob L]

5 Gal unusable sounds like a bad design to me. What else did Piper design badly on the PA28 series?

[fishermanpaul]

[quote='Gerard Clarke']All of the above comments seem very sensible, but a question for Paul, if I may: your narrative sugests that you did not load fuel at any of the stops en route. Apols if I am misreading that. If no fuel uplift, was there a particular reason for that? This is not a barbed question and I am not implying that you are a fuel-numpty. I am genuinely interested in the decision making.[/quote]

No particularly good reasons. As a non-equity group it generally costs me slightly more to fill up somewhere other than Cov. Also the group rule is that we leave it full to tabs for the next person so I would have had to refuel after landing anyway. The main reason was that, for the first three legs there was no question about having enough - the fourth leg I calculated I had between 1.5 and 2 hours endurance, with good weather, a 45 min leg and Wellesbourne, Sywell and even Birmingham within easy divert distance.

And it's an Arrow 4 with the 72USG tanks so I think, like Keef's, that 5USG unusable is correct. I will check in the manual next time I'm there though.

[Gerard Clarke]

Thanks, Paul. I understand your judgment. I would probably have loaded fuel somewhere on the way, but I fly thirsty things or things with small tanks and even more than usually dodgy gauges anyway.