BeardedFlyer

I recently was hired to fly jumpers in a place that's sunny all year. Flying a lot of hours and planning to stay here for a few months. So first week on the job this happens:

I dip my tanks before the last load of the day and I have about 10 gallons in the right tank (plus 10 in the left that we only use as a reserve) which is plenty to turn a load to full altitude in this particular airplane. I had been averaging about a 6-7 gallon burn per load before this but it was the first time i had taken off with under 15 gallons in the right tank. So I start up, taxi, take off, then at about 500 ft AGL I hear for the first time what it sounds like to run out of gas. I was able to flip the aux fuel pump and switch tanks before it completely quit but it freaked out all the skydivers. I finished the load on the left tank.

When the owner found out he was not pleased... he fired me on the spot. Before leaving, even though I was no longer an employee at that point I went to re fuel the plane. Just for the hell of it I dipped the right dry tank... it was bone dry, and so was the left tank. Apparently I was only seconds away from dead sticking it in. I couldn't believe it, I knew there was no way I could have burned up that much gas, so with the tanks dry I checked the wooden dip stick I had been using the last two weeks against the fuel counter on the pump. At 10 gallons on the fuel counter I checked the dipstick... dipstick read close to 20 gallons. Turns out the dipstick was way off. The owner was the one who gave me this dipstick and told me it was for this airplane. When I showed him the mismarkings he re-hired me. Moral of the story is don't trust anyone else's dipstick. Well, you can but I never will again.

usmc-sgt

Sounds like a nice lesson learned.

A homemade wooden dipstick is certainly not the method I would trust my certificate or life with.

rotorhead1026

Two dipstick malfunctions - the mechanical one and the owner (who fired you "on the spot"). Three if you count his calibration skills. I'm glad you re-fueled the airplane when you didn't have to.

You saved the owner's ass too (figuratively), not to mention possibly a pilot and jumpers; eventually somebody would have run out of fuel.

Hang in there - but be careful, though. This sounds like an all too typical jump operation. A violation or accident will put a dent in your career hopes as well as possibly your body.

rotorhead1026

Well, I used one on light helicopters quite a bit - but I calibrated it myself.

Once they're accurately calibrated, the biggest danger is dropping the damned thing into the tank. The stick needs to be really long or have an oversized tennis ball attached.

Duckdude

So you appeared to run through 10 gallons in the first minute or two, then continued a flight on what you thought was the same amount of fuel in the other tank? I don't know that I would be calling someone else a dipstick.

chrisreedrules

Still not worse than my diver-driving experience... I won't go into it here but it was a serious eye-opening experience. "Engine failures, runaway props, and dead-sticks oh my".

BeardedFlyer

I was only calling the dipstick a dipstick, but anyway you're right, I should have landed the plane right after that. The reason I didn't was I thought right away that I must have screwed up somehow... glanced at the 5 gallon mark and thought it was the 10, or thought I flew one less load than I actually did or something like that (my immediate assumption was pilot error)... the possibility that my dipstick was off did not occur to me so I continued on thinking I did have 10 gallons in the other tank. If I had known there was in reality much less than that there is no way I would have kept going. I also thought if I just finished the flight as usual then I could come back, fuel up and the owner would never find out where as if I went back to land right after take off than it would have been obvious something went wrong. That didn't matter since one of the jumpers in the plane brought it up later anyway.

block30

All I can say is at least you didn't experience a "wardrobe malfunction.".

Cubdriver

I always topped off after a certain number of runs was performed, and used the number of runs to determine how much fuel (runs) were left. Start with full fuel, do the set number of runs, top it off. Fool-proof system and you can keep track of the number of hops using the OBS dial on a typical VOR head. Start at 0 (360), 1 run is 10 degrees, 2 runs are 20 degrees, etc. There is no excuse for a fuel starvation event. You do not need fuel gages and should not depend on them. I had one freeze at a half tank one time, even bobbing a little bit. The tank was bone dry.

Glad you are ok. Be rather anal about safety in this job, always bear in mind the drop zone is about making money and YOU are about safety. They will screw you in a heartbeat and think nothing of it, seen it many times. Take care of your tickets, just say no if safety is in doubt.

Another good tip is, on a sheet of paper work out your fuel load in detail.

x gal reserve
x gals per 10k run
x gal capacity
x gal unusable
x gal per 5k run

Keep this sheet in the plane and look at it at the start of each day to remind yourself what the game plan is.

N9373M

The only jump school I went to traded fuel for pax (C182). Is this common? One of the jump pilots said you had to be careful descending (steep turns) as you may unport the fuel flow.