Originally Posted by
Av8tr1
I’m looking at it right now. It does say if more than 3 segments though. It says if fuel imbalance is suspected land as soon as practicable. If fuel leak suspected land as soon as possible. OPs explanation seemed to imply he was considering a fuel leak due to earlier fuel leak and he doesn’t specify how many segments just that readings were erratic. With erratic readings and a recent fuel leak I’m gonna land even if I just fueled. Sounds like the following day OP was justified.
Ironically I just had my EIS crap out on me mid flight a few nights ago. Somehow I gained about 500lbs in flight. Went from 1450 something to 1988. Plane was grounded the minute I touched down per our MX dept.
The OP's issue is relatively common in those legacy PC12's due to the design of the fuel level indicators, and the QRH procedure is described exactly in that post. You get a drop to 0 on one side that comes back intermittantly. Hand flying will reveal an imbalance, and once on the ground a fuel leak would be evident if one existed. Fuel flow and total burn indications still work and match what would normally be seen on the operative tank side.
Nothing wrong with a return to origin airport to be sure, but not continuing with a valid MEL is a little harder to explain. Definitely not an "experiment" as he suggested. MEL programs exist and are FAA approved for a reason.