Alright, let's finish my instrument training flight that we started last
week and try to squeeze in another big, fat, beyond the checkride segment,
where we'll dive into fueling our own airplanes at self service pumps.
Enjoy today's episode of the Student Pilot Cast, Tanks for the Memories,
How Not to Make Fuel ish Mistakes.
Welcome back SBC listeners, and I'm sorry about the puns.
I can't help it.
Anyway, we're back with the conclusion of my first training flight under the
hood in quite a while I'll try to be quick on the commentary and the in
cockpit audio on this one because we've got a pretty big Beyond the check ride
segment that I want to make sure that we have time for and that we squeeze
in here Before we get going on that though, there were a couple of things I
promised to at least touch on this week.
I'll hopefully go into detail at some point in the future.
But I mentioned last week when I was talking about my son working at APS
that he'd likely be getting a pretty fun ride in an airplane here pretty soon.
Well I had one recently too and I mentioned that briefly.
So let me step out of sequence here a little bit in my
training and get you up to date.
As you may know I'm currently working on my CFI training right now.
Thanks Mostly just waiting on getting a DPE scheduled, but still learning,
studying, and flying, and trying to be ready when it does get scheduled.
So if you don't know You have to get a SPIN endorsement to be a
candidate for the CFI checkride, so I decided to do it in style.
I went back to where it all began for me, Chandler Air Service, and
did my SPIN training with a great instructor there who's been doing crazy
fun stuff in airplanes for decades.
I had never even taken a plane upside down before, so I knew
this was gonna be a treat.
And one of the best parts of the whole thing was that I did the
flying part of the training in an open cockpit aerobatic biplane.
What a freaking rush.
We did a fair amount of ground training before getting in the
airplane, probably a couple of hours worth, and then hopped in a Great
Lakes biplane to do the actual spins.
The nature of that cockpit, especially with the parachutes we were wearing,
it felt more like we were wearing the airplane than sitting in it.
But what a great experience.
I got 1.
1 of dual in that biplane that day and probably did more than a dozen spins of
all kinds, went upside down, did spin reversals, accelerated spins, you name it.
By the end though, I was spent
my stomach was starting to get a little angry with me as I wasn't
used to those types of movements.
And.
As I recall, I didn't realize the training was going to be that long.
We got a little bit of a late start because he had another lesson that
he was finishing up beforehand.
And I ended up not eating all morning.
And by the time we were done with the flight, it was afternoon
and that probably wasn't smart.
I didn't do it on purpose.
I just thought, Oh, I'll be there for a couple of hours
and then I'll grab some food.
And, anyway, it didn't work.
It didn't work out.
My stomach was getting mad at me.
when we were on our way back in from the flight, he asked if I
wanted to do some mild aerobatics.
And while my stomach and head were saying no way, I found myself
saying, well, yeah, of course.
So how do you pass up a chance like that?
Right.
I did fine.
No dog bag needed that day.
But I was still glad I had one there just in case, you know what I mean?
Anyway, I actually learned a great deal and had a ton of fun
Despite it being really pretty hot.
The open cockpit helped keep things a little cooler Even I think we
were starting most of our maneuvers at about 5, 500 MSL The reason I
don't recall for sure is because we had set our altimeter for, AGL.
We'd set it to ground level.
So we'd always see how far above the deck we were.
so I, I think it was somewhere around 5, 500 that we were
starting all the maneuvers.
So it helped a little bit to be up higher like that.
And luckily, luckily it was slightly cooler than it had been
lately for that particular day.
I flew especially because we weren't flying until You know,
noon, but cooler for Arizona in the summer is still blasted hot.
Anyway, I just wanted to bring you up to speed a bit on what I'd been doing
and that ride I had, and hopefully I'll do a more in depth recount
of that training and the flight in a future episode of the podcast.
I did record the flight, but being an open cockpit and all the audio is not
quite as clean as I normally get, but that's all right, it's still usable.
And I'll share what I can.
Coming up at some point in the podcast.
So let's get on to the end of my instrument training
flight way back in sequence.
If you remember, I was doing instrument patterns in the sky
when we left off last week.
So we'll pick it up there again, as usual, I'll edit the audio in the cockpit
for blank space and brevity and just jump in to comment where necessary.
The last half of this flight should go pretty quickly.
Remember, this is February in the Phoenix Valley, so absolutely Beautiful weather.
So I started talking about how I felt like I was missing the view
from the cockpit on such a nice day.
And Eddie reminded me that this was just the beginning and that I'd be itching
to be able to see outside long before I finished my instrument training.
South practice, Red Rock 60, 4, 500 over the north test track.
It's too bad though, I love the view from the cockpit on nice days.
I don't get to enjoy it.
You honestly, at the end of instrument, you're actually going to be excited
for a commercial because you're going to be able to look outside.
Good point.
I was really bummed out after.
It was great, but not being able to look outside gets annoying.
Alright, 30 seconds to my right 180.
There you go.
Traffic is all no factor now, which is perfect.
Thank you.
Honestly, I'm using this primarily for vague because that's throwing me off.
So this is now your primary instrument, this is now your supporting.
Yeah, might as well make that in op.
So, uh, control, yeah, so that's the other form of instrument flying, is your
primary supporting method of instruments.
All right, here's our one minute standard rate turn.
Back pressure.
it turned faster than expected.
By 4 or 5 seconds.
That is weird.
It must have been too high at some point.
On the rate of turn I mean.
No, no, a little bit, but you're fine.
You still look pretty good.
I'm trying to find the timer on here so you don't have to use your phone.
I need another knee board for my phone.
Yeah, for real.
I'm going to figure that out for us on the next flight.
Watch your altitude.
I got fixated for a second.
Yep, fixation and omission.
It's true.
What kills pilots.
The struggle is real.
The struggle is very, very real.
Alright, so you're heading on this for two minutes.
We're 43 seconds into it.
And Red Rocks 1, 600 feet above us.
What's that?
Ryan and Jaclyn are about 1, 600 feet above us.
Oh, got some company traffic, huh?
Yep, they're ripping.
I mean, not like us on the scooters this morning, but.
Oh, no, not like us, no, they could never.
Alright, so let me explain that for a second.
I think I had mentioned before that there was work being done on the hangar and
tie down areas for the flight school.
In fact, they were moving locations
and prep was being done on the new place.
So the airplanes were homeless for a bit.
So for a couple of months, or maybe it was only a few weeks, it's hard to
remember, they were being parked out on the flight line in front of the tower.
About a ten minute walk from the school.
I think in a previous episode you heard a controller ask about our walk out there.
Well, sometimes instead of hoofing it, we'd get on the golf cart if it was
available, or on some occasions, we'd We grabbed some electric scooters that
they had in the hangar there, if they were charged, and if they were available.
And that's what we had done that morning.
And we had some fun getting out to the plane.
That's why the reference to us ripping around the airport on those scooters.
So, now you know.
Let's continue.
Southeast, Fractionary, Oxford 7119, two miles south of the AGL, headed to
the Phoenix, last call, sorry, headed to Stockfield, last call, southeast.
Southwest Fractionary, Oxford 5821, 2, 100 over the I 10 Greenfields Ground rope.
Last call.
That's cool, it just flew right over the top of us.
20 seconds.
Cool, 20 seconds to go.
I'll be doing a right one minute turn.
Yep, perfect.
Here we go.
And on this one, for traffic's sake, I'm going to have you climb up to, uh, 4, 700.
4, 700.
Keep that climb coming.
There you go.
Twenty four seconds in the turn.
Go.
Alright,
that one was perfectly one minute.
And there you are.
Oh, I'm losing it.
Get back to, before you call it, let me get back to my altitude.
Red Rock 60, maintain 4, 700.
Pilot deviation.
4, 700.
And how much more time do we have on this one?
I think it's over.
Done.
Alright, perfect.
Um, we are it's almost 840, so we uh, probably start, have to head back.
Okay.
Um, but we managed to get a traffic, or we managed to get
a pattern in, which is great.
Next time we'll just rip through the ground a little bit faster
so we have some more time in the air, but that was fantastic Bill.
So now what I'm going to have you do is I'm going to have you go direct
Chandler and descend down to 3, 300.
Alright, that's going to be a left turn?
Um, let's do a let's do a left turn.
Left turn heading direct Chandler.
Alright.
Descending to 3, 300.
And my heading, shouldn't it tell me?
Three zero.
Two three.
Yep.
When you come out off, when you're heading, you can get the weather.
Four.
Dalkin,
Okay, so I'd grabbed the ATIS for Falcon here, but notice the winds.
It was blowing pretty good.
So a funny little conversation happened between Eddie and me.
Should he be worried?
Maybe.
I'll just let it play all the way back to the field.
Here you go.
Papa.
1, 4, 5, 4.
Zulu wind 3 0 1 2.
Gus, two zero.
Temperature 1, 2 2 point minus five.
Ultima 3 0 2 5.
Approach east landing.
Enter party runway waist.
Four left and four.
Right.
You not observe effect for further information Contact.
All arrivals contact tower 124.
6.
Papa.
I wanted to hear the winds one more time
Sure.
Sounds like it's gusting pretty good.
Yeah, I think it's gusting 20.
Wind 030 at 12, gust 20.
Temperature 12, dew point minus 5, altimeter 3025.
Uh, I can take the landing if you're not comfortable with it.
That's pretty much down the runway.
I think we're okay.
Alright.
You can be on it with me in case you're worried.
Sure.
Okay.
But I could use the practice.
I'm not that worried.
I'm slightly worried, but.
Laughter.
Alright, you got a thousand feet to descend.
emergency descent to forest landing, look out for the southeast.
South Praxis area, Red Rock six east, two miles to the west of Papachula, four
thousand descending, three thousand three hundred north, back to Falcon, southeast.
Okay, so it's like 30, 40 miles.
That's a good deal.
Uh, I hope he's not heading back too.
Alright, you can come right, uh, heading, let's say 0 5 0.
0 5 0.
0
5 0 and keep that descent coming.
Um, we're gonna keep the speed up to try to get ahead of this Oxford so
you can honestly almost go full power.
Okay.
Alright, 130, man.
Alright, good.
Yeah, I just want to get some separation between this guy,
just for safety, but good job.
Southeast Bracketeria, 2791, 4, 000, Johnson's Ranch going southbound.
He was coming kinda right at us, same altitude, he's also
heading back to Falcon, so.
Alright, you can start, you can pull that power back now.
You can go down to like 2, 300 or fine now.
Standing
way below for some reason.
So maybe he's just going to transition through Chandler or do
some landings there or something.
I don't know.
Help you out a little bit.
There we go.
Just clear of that, Bravo clear of this shelf.
We'll just go right in the middle.
Got it.
I want to look out so bad and like see where Chandler is.
Yeah, I know.
Take a quick peek for a second.
Right.
Looks like there's some wind pushing it kind of maybe to the left a little bit.
So really just kind of go kind of towards the middle.
You don't even have to follow this line.
Just kind of put us right in the center.
Got it.
You know what I'm saying?
Yep.
Maybe like a zero four five heading almost.
Zero four zero.
Zero four five.
Southwest Factory, Oxford 6154, we're about 2 miles northwest of
Meccawood Town, tune in to the tailgate for the first landing.
Come right, 045 for now.
045, got it.
And you're 10 miles, so you can switch over to tower.
Morning helicopter, MD 8, filtrate ramp lights are in position to the
echo ramp for the MD 2 with PAPA.
MD 8, MD 2 approved.
MD 8.
And you can say, uh, Falcon Tower, Red Rock 60 is 10 miles to the
south, inbound, full stop with PAPA.
Falcon Tower, Red Rock 60 is 10 miles to the south, inbound with PAPA, full stop.
This is 9774 Fall Cherokee on a mile final runway, 4 left clear to land.
4 left clear to land, number 2, 9774.
Red Rock 60, Fox Tower, straight in runway 4 right.
Straight in for 4 right, Red Rock 60.
Beautiful, Bill.
Nice job.
Alright, we're clear of that traffic over there.
Say the call sign one more time.
I don't know what he's talking about.
Talking to someone else in here.
Spreading It's kind of sandwiching.
It's not fun kind of dodging the airspace, but you get used to it after a while.
I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you.
I was going to say, it's not really ideal just threading between airspaces,
but after a while you get used to it.
Alright, so now that we're past Chandler's airspace, you can descend and maintain
2, 400 traffic pattern altitude.
2, 400.
We want to be, by the time we hit that airspace for Falcon,
we want to be at 2, 400.
So you can continue with your before landing checklist,
because we made that first call.
Alright.
Before landing, fuel pump on.
Got to do a scan between each item.
I know.
Uh, fuel, proper tank, I think we're still good.
Yep.
Uh, mixture.
Rich.
We're still rich.
RRP is 10.
Ending light.
That other one.
There you go.
And five miles out.
That's for Unpowered.
They said straight in four, right?
Oh, route one Probably.
Yankee, can you make go below, go 700.
We're gonna kinda, we're gonna turn left.
Heading.
We're ready.
3 6 0 1 Bra Yankee Roger, make the right turn on Delta four.
Delta Duke.
Okay, Delta 2 holding short of 4 right, 1 Bravo Yankee.
Red Rock 71, right Delta 6, contact ground, see ya.
Delta 6, Delta ground, 10 4, see ya.
Roger, 2781, runway 48 full length, line up and wait.
Line up and wait, Delta 421, 2781.
Rocket 1, Bravo Yankee, runway 48 at Delta 2, clear for takeoff.
Fly straight out.
Okay, Rocket 1, Bravo Yankee, cleared for takeoff, straight out.
Yeah, it should even out, yeah, for acceleration there, perfect.
Yeah, talking to ROX for 3966, could we get a short approach on this one?
Roger, 3966, make short approach, runway 4 left, cleared for option.
Short approach, 4 left, cleared for the option, thank you, ROX for 3966.
Roger, ROX 60, runway 48, continue traffic in position.
We're continuing Red Rock 60.
Perfect.
Falcon Tower, Oxford 9750, requesting Chandler Arrival with information Papa.
Tell me when I can see again.
I know, I was just thinking about that.
Left turn Echo 4, 4 left via Echo 98774.
Cleared for takeoff, runway 4R, Oxford 2781.
You can slowly start your descent down at 2, 000.
Start the descent?
Yeah, you can slowly start your descent down at 2, 000.
Once you hit 2, 000, you can take your focals off.
Rec 1 Bravo Yankee right turn approved.
Right turn 1 Bravo Yankee, thanks.
Knox 5542, boundary tower, delay approved, runway 4 4 right,
cleared for takeoff, Knox 5542.
Knox 9750, reduce speed, following Cherokee 12 o'clock, 2 miles,
runway 4 right, cleared to land.
Reduce speed, 4 right, cleared to land, Knox 9750.
Red Rock 60, runway 4 right, cleared to land.
Cleared to land, 4 right, Red Rock 60.
Alright, just do a normal landing.
Welcome back.
See ya.
3, 400 eastbound Cherokee.
Alright, I'm gonna go ahead and put, uh, Can you hold that, please?
Thank you.
Alright, one Bravo Yankee, roger.
Break change approved, Stu.
Okay, see you in a while, thanks.
MD a's ready to go.
Yankee two, MDA Yankee two approved.
MD eight.
Hello.
Watch your out.
Dude.
Could
be about 1800, right?
1, 3, 0, 2 Charlie 10 miles east Northeast.
3,600 landing.
Popup
90.
November 1, 3 0 2.
Charlie Falcon Tower Make right traffic runway.
Four, eight.
Right?
Traffic.
Four.
Right.
Columbia is zero two.
Charlie, you don't need to add collapse.
Yeah, if you're a little low, you can always add power.
Oh, I got the one in.
With the gusting, it's probably better not to go full flaps.
No, probably not.
So let's just stay at 25.
We're clear to land.
Additional traffic is
12 o'clock, one mile, three thousand six hundred eastbound Cherokee.
Yes, sir.
Thank you.
Have them and we're going to pass behind them to his right.
Keep the flap settings where it's at, right?
You could go flap 25 if you really need to, but right now it
seems like this is doing us fine.
Yeah.
Because you're still a little low, so you don't need to add another set of flaps.
That's what I would decide to.
I just wanted to make sure.
3966, roger, left traffic.
Left, 3966, and then, uh, can we try that, uh, that short approach again?
Alright, I got one, white.
3966, short approach, runway four left, clear to option.
Short approach, four left, clear for the option, OXA 3966, Flaps
set, approach stable, clear to land, 4 right.
Still at 80.
Perfect.
Still got one way, almost two, there's two.
Make sure to not land with brakes.
Get directional control, then add brakes.
Little high.
Oh, he's getting on the controls with you lately.
Nice little power.
I'm gonna let that
airspeed bleed off.
Beautiful.
Perfect.
Right on Delta 6
and we'll contact ground, Red Rock 60.
Oh, it says all the plants on the runway.
It's a bunch of crap out here.
AJ Approved, 5542.
Columbia, 02Charlie, runway 4 right clear to land, number 1.
Clear on number, uh, clear on 4 right, 02Charlie, number 1.
And come to a stop after that assault line.
Clear, clear.
Near Delta 6.
Talking ground, Red Rock 60 is off at 4 right at Delta 6.
Going to parking.
Red Rock 60 talking ground, taxi parking via Delta.
Taxi to parking via Delta, Red Rock 60.
Nicely done.
That's my, uh, fuel timer going on.
I'm glad you didn't switch it, um, when we're that low to the ground
in case something were to go wrong.
Right.
Okay.
We'll just go, yeah, we'll just go right next to, uh, six.
Six
KY.
Four.
Three.
Charlie F and grand runway.
Four Delta.
Delta four.
Right.
Uh, three Charlie.
Thank you.
And we'll just line ourselves up with those wings and we'll do our after
landing checklist, and then we'll do our parking secure checklist.
Okay.
Yeah.
A thousand's fine
after landing lap.
I already got those.
Fuel pump off, landing light off, Carb heat still in.
Pulling that anyway.
Braking brake is on, mixture cut off.
Hold on, wait till it, wait till it.
I will, I will.
Alright, magnetos are Okay.
So pretty good flight.
I was learning, making some mistakes and had a lot of mistakes
to learn from yet to come.
I was able to land okay in the gusts, although it wasn't too far off the runway
heading, so it wasn't too hard, but I was happy to be getting experiences that
would continue to make me a better pilot.
I was having a lot of fun with Eddie and I was just so happy to
be flying again, even though I could barely look outside anymore.
So let me know what you think.
Am I going to make it through this?
All right, it's time for today's Beyond the Checkride.
Let's bring Kent back into the SPC studios and see what he has for us today.
All right.
I'm back with Kent Shook for another Beyond the Checkride.
Kent, how are you doing?
Excellent as usual.
I'm always happy when I get to talk
Awesome.
And what topic do you have for us today?
Well, this one's important because it is one of the top three causes of accidents
that I think have been the top three for a really, really, really long time.
those three things.
Of course, are into weather you're not prepared for.
are the airplane.
Quote, maneuvering flight, which means, you know, buzzing your
buddy's house because you think it's cool and then crashing into
power lines or something like that.
Or, you know what the third one is.
What is it?
Fuel problems.
Absolutely.
We S for some silly reason, we cannot stop running out of gas.
It's my opinion, the dumbest reason to crash an airplane, because, you know,
there are so many ways of being prepared and having lots and lots of fuel.
know, personally, I want an hour minimum, even if it's on
a Clear, beautiful VFR day.
I think I recently told you the story about how I was flying an airplane
that had more than a 7 hour endurance and it had been flown for 45 minutes
before I flew it and I decided to have it topped off anyway and after
I flew I was really glad I had.
So, yeah, I mean, there's a reason that the saying goes, the only time you can
have too much fuel is when you're on fire.
Right.
And one thing that I think would help that a lot Is I always wonder, you know,
if someone's flying home from a, uh, G.
A.
vacation, know, and it's getting kind of late Sunday night, and
all the FBOs are closed, and their fuel's getting kind of marginal.
How many people have crashed because they just went, well, I don't really
know how to fuel my own airplane, and I'm probably going to be okay, and
I just want to get home, I'm tired, and, you know, so they push it.
And then run out of gas.
You know, how much does that happen?
If you look
in the NTSB
Yeah.
there
are so many of these running out of fuel accidents that just make you
facepalm what were you thinking?
And I really just think in many cases, it's because people have
never fueled an airplane themselves.
And it's not something
that's taught to
Yeah.
during primary training.
Unless They're at one of the airports that maybe doesn't have fuel trucks,
and it's their flight school's that, you know, they fuel the airplane as soon as
they're done flying, but other than that one limited circumstance, I think most
people get a private pilot certificate and have no clue how to fuel an airplane.
Um,
agree.
I, I hadn't ever fueled an airplane, uh, when I got my private certificate.
Yeah.
I didn't learn it until I joined the club of our, or we had to fill all of our
own airplanes, even at our home airport.
there was only self serve there, um, because I, I started flying out of a
small private airport and, you know, it's so wonky to me that you can be a
pilot and I didn't think about it at the time, but I thought about it afterwards
when I thought, man, I don't know how to fuel my own airplane, but it, it
seems really strange that you can be a pilot and not ever have been taught.
how to fuel, um, an airplane.
But I think, like you said, I think a lot of people are in that boat.
So I think this is a great topic.
yeah, I would guess it's probably the vast majority of people, until you
get to the point where you're flying into little rural places a lot, or,
you know, maybe you get into back country flying or something like that.
there's, there's probably a lot of people who make it all the way to the
airlines without ever having fueled an
airplane.
So,
probably true.
Yeah.
anyway, so let's, let's kind
And then they still don't have to.
through the whole process.
I mean, there's, I don't know how many FBOs there are the world,
but I do know that airports that have an FBO are in the minority.
There are so many places out there where, you know, you stop at Podunk
Municipal, and you can stop and you can fuel up your own airplane.
so let's talk about how you do that.
First of all, of course, you want to pull up to the pump.
Um, my preferred method of doing it is to the left wing closer to the pump.
It's just so that I can taxi back out when I go to leave.
Because I fly a really heavy airplane, it's kind of hard to push back.
if you're flying something lighter, it's Like a 152, 172, something like
that, that you can push pretty easily, then it's okay to just go ahead and
pull straight up to the pump.
Yeah.
I've
and this is a scenario where,
always done that too.
okay, yeah, this is a scenario where I think using the parking
brake is usually an easy way to go.
That way you don't have to worry about chocks once you get out.
But yeah, park the airplane in a good spot.
You basically want to be able to easily pull the fuel hose
out in front of the airplane.
So when I'm in the Mooney, like I said, I kind of point my left wing toward
where the pumps are, but I want the pump to be kind of at a 45 degree angle.
to the front and left of me out past the wingtip.
And that way, if I pull the fuel hose straight out, I'm
going in front of the nose.
I'm not, you know, getting into the prop or anything like that.
I'm not trying to pull it around my nose gear or any of that sort of thing.
So park it in a good position like that.
Shut down.
Turn that parking brake on, hop out, and then, of course, you gotta pay.
I think there's, there's only about three or maybe four different types of payment
terminals at all the airports in the U.
S.
for some reason I can't think of what any of them are called right now, but
they're all fairly straightforward.
Yeah.
The payment terminal, you should be able to operate, but the fuel pumps
are different than most people are, or
yeah, and we'll get to that.
used to with cars.
So yeah, or,
be aware of is that some airports will have a timeout in between when you, make
your payment and when you start the pump.
So, one thing that I've seen a lot of people do to pull out the fuel hose.
First, before you do the payment terminal, and that way, as soon as
you're done with your payment, you can go straight to the switch that
turns the pump on and turn it right on so that you don't get that timeout.
I will say I often don't do that, but there have been times where that's
bitten me and I've had to go through the whole credit card procedure a second
time because the pump had a really short timeout and I didn't get the hose
out quick enough, so to be aware of.
the other thing is on All of those payment terminals, they're at some point going
to ask you, is the aircraft grounded?
So, this isn't your car, you're not buying 10 gallons of fuel most likely.
in fact, bonus to being able to fuel your own airplane is that you don't have
to buy your fuel from an expensive FBO.
you know, I'm based at a field that has Atlantic Aviation and they are not cheap.
I can save like a buck fifty, two bucks a gallon and my fuel capacity is 90 gallons.
And so sometimes I'm going and buying 75 or 80 gallons at a time.
and at two bucks a gallon, that's real money.
so that.
Flight to the little airport that has the cheap fuel pays for itself.
If you needed any more incentive to listen to the rest of this segment, there it is.
This can save you a whole lot of money.
or better yet, get you a little extra flying for no more money.
Exactly.
I mean, that's, that's, how I look at it.
Hey, I get to have a nice little flight basically for free and you know, that's
not to say that you shouldn't support your local FBO But I don't think
Atlantic Aviation is gonna miss my money when they're fueling Gulfstreams
and Falcons and such In fact, I'm I'm probably more of an inconvenience to them
if anything at that point
Yeah.
We're, we're a nuisance to operations like that.
So yeah, you know if you have a great little mom and pop FBO at your
home airport and you know They're probably not charging Atlantic or
Signature kind of money either.
You know, definitely go ahead and support them when you can.
anyway, let's see, where were we?
Grounding your airplane.
You're going to be most likely pumping a fair amount of fuel.
You may have just been flying and both of those things cause a lot of
static electricity buildup, chances are, you know, the electrical
potential of the airplane is not going to be the same as the pump.
And so that's why there's always that bonding strap, it's usually a wire
that's on a little retractable spool that you just pull out and you want to
attach it to a part of the airplane.
That
Is not painted.
it's got a big alligator clip basically on the end.
It's clamp.
You just, it's spring loaded and you just clamp it onto.
And it's worth looking in the manual for your airplane to see if there is a
specified grounding point on the airplane.
Um, you know, kind of conventional wisdom is just something unpainted.
a lot of, uh, FBOs I know will just attach it to the bolt on the nose gear
that's not painted or something like that.
Or, I generally plug, uh, clamp mine onto the exhaust of the airplane.
Um, But for example, uh, on a lot of composite airplanes, you know,
that airplane is not all conductive the way a metal airplane would be.
And so, um, I don't know where you do it on a Cirrus to be honest, but on a Diamond
Star, there is a specific grounding point on the underside of the wing.
It almost looks like a spark plug coming out the bottom of the wing.
And that's what you're supposed to clip it to.
Because if you clip it to the exhaust on a Diamond Star, there is no.
electrical path between the exhaust and the tanks at all.
So just be aware of that.
And, um, especially if you're not on a metal airplane, make
sure that you're grounding the airplane at the specified point.
And that's just to avoid having any sparks flying in the vicinity
of fuel when you go to fuel up.
the other thing you want to do is when you are fueling, keep the, filler
against the filler neck of the airplane.
So you have another path there for that electricity to go.
but really the final thing in terms of not creating any sparks is when
you're done, don't tap against the airplane to knock that last little drip
off because you know, pulling it off and putting it back on, you're just
creating another opportunity for a spark.
So, Keep it in contact with the airplane until you're done with
that tank and then just pull it right off and don't touch it again.
at this point, you should have your ground strap attached to the, uh,
the proper point on your airplane.
You've got your fuel hose pulled out.
now, It's really pretty simple.
But before I get too far ahead of myself, let's talk about those payment terminals.
Again,
one of the questions it's going to ask you is for the tail number of your airplane.
And I know some people who I would bet are not putting the
tail number of their airplane.
They're putting some random thing in there.
But the reason you do want to put the tail number of your airplane in there is,
you know, let's say you run out of fuel.
up short, maybe it wasn't even your fault.
Maybe you had plenty of fuel, you know, maybe a fuel cap was loosed
and you were, you were siphoning some fuel overboard in flight.
And whatever reason you ran out of fuel, that's how you can prove that.
Yes, I really did have more fuel aboard.
is, they're going to be able to go back and say, Oh, yes, November
5, put on 80 gallons at Potomac Municipal on their way here.
and in the unfortunate event you don't make it, that's how the NTSB is going
to be able to piece together, whether it was some sort of a mechanical thing
where, you know, there was a fuel cap failure or whether they just say, ah,
well, there goes another stupid pilot who didn't fuel up their airplane.
So please do go ahead and actually put your tail number in there so
that Um, you know, the FAA and the NTSB can say, okay, yeah, that
person fueled up their airplane.
Side note, I bet November 1, is the most commonly fueled airplane out
there, just for those people who don't want to put their own tail number in.
So, you've paid for your fuel, you've got your plane grounded,
you've got your hose out to the plane, got your fuel pump turned on.
Um,
that can happen in different ways as
Do you yet?
You should.
There you go.
I was going to say,
I was going to say that's probably the next thing you should cover because
um, people aren't used to turning on the fuel pump after they've paid.
Yeah, one thing people don't realize is when you're fueling your car, you
know, a lot of the pumps will still have the thing where you lift the handle
and you have to flip that little thing
Mm hmm.
what you're doing.
Um, at most airports, I would say that the most common variety I see is that
there's a little switch that can rock up and down, um, inside the fuel cabinet.
And it's often next to a light switch.
That's the same style, um, that will light up the inside of the
cabinet if you're fueling at night.
Um,
I have
it's usually close to the um, flow meter.
Um, that's going to tell you how many gallons
right.
that's the way I see it usually around here anyway, is it's somewhere
around, um, you're going to see usually an analog flow meter.
That's going to, um, there's a reset button.
I don't know if you were going to get to that, but let's you zero that out.
Usually the on off switch is somewhere close to that.
Yeah.
I would agree.
And you just made another great point.
Those, those analog meters, need to be reset before you start pumping fuel.
I would say most commonly there is a on the right hand side that you just turn.
Uh, so the top is going front to back and that'll roll all the numbers down to zero
and then you let go and you'll be able to tell how much fuel you're pumping.
They're, they're still, they're still counting how much fuel you're pumping.
So you're going to pay for it either way.
But if you want to know how much you're pumping, it'd be
a good idea to zero that out.
Yes, for sure.
It's not going to affect the payment at all.
Like you
said, um, that's just a tool
Yep.
for you to know how much you put in.
Okay, so, the other thing that I have seen is there are airports that have
taken old school automotive fuel pumps and done some hardware hacking to them
to make them into aircraft fuel pumps
so you
I have not run across that.
That is.
It's pretty funny.
you may actually need to lift that little thing that
would have been where the
pump handle used to be.
since aircraft pump handles are not the same shape, they won't fit in there.
So, um, there's usually some other place where the pump handle goes.
yeah, you'll see all kinds of.
Things that have been hacked together at small airports.
Um, you know, everybody's making use of the resources that they have available.
So, just be aware that, you know, there is quite a bit of variation out there.
but yeah, I would say by far the most common is that one that's
inside the cabinet real close to the analog meter numbers.
And that's probably slightly into the majority of, of, uh, small airport
self serve pumps that I've seen.
So, are we ready to pump fuel yet?
try and keep the rest of the mechanism and the hose and everything
from touching the airplane.
you know, even if it's your airplane and you're paying for the next paint
job, there's no reason to rush that.
If you're on a high wing airplane, Now, you're probably up on a ladder,
so the easiest way to handle that is to have the fuel hose coming over your
shoulder, and that way it's not going to make contact with the airplane at all.
by the way, um, most, I don't know about most, many places,
uh, where you get self serve fuel will have a ladder laying there.
So,
I would say
pretty much everybody does.
have never been
yeah,
that had self serve fuel that didn't have a ladder.
Or,
I haven't either, but I haven't been to most places, so I
didn't want to overspeak.
yeah, well, I mean, when I was flying the 182 around all over the place, you
know, I was fueling that myself, and Um, that is one thing that, I said, I've
never run into a place that didn't have a ladder because they would be excluding
the entire wing segment of the market.
Um, speaking of Cessnas we recently talked about securing a Your airplane
post flight and how you need to move the fuel selector off of the both position.
Same thing happens here.
If you leave your fuel selector on both, the fuel will start draining from one
wing into the other almost immediately when you start filling up one side.
And so, gallons can move across.
Um, at least this is what I found in the 182 is, you'd have several gallons move
across from one side to the other if you fueled it with the fuel selector in both.
And then you get on the other side and you fill it up and well then you're
not actually filled up anymore because, some of your fuel, across when you
were fueling the first tank, and so you got some air in that tank now.
Um, so make sure you put the fuel selector on left or right before you
fuel up, um, on a Cessna or anything else that has between tanks like that.
just make sure you know your fuel system and make sure you're putting
your fuel in the place you want it.
but yeah, most planes, you're going to be fueling up one wing and then
moving and fueling up the other one.
I pretty much always fuel up the wing that's farther from the pump
first, just so that I don't have to pull more fuel hose out in between.
you know, if you're on a high wing, you're going to need to
move your ladder in between tanks and that sort of thing as well.
But once you're done, you know, if you got that high wing, go
ahead and put the ladder away.
but the next thing you want to do is turn the pump off.
So go and find that switch wherever you found it, turn the pump off.
And, you'll hear the pump stop and you'll probably, if you're close enough to
that payment terminal, you're, you'll hear a receipt start to print, get
everything all buttoned up, make sure your fuel caps are on securely and.
I actually don't know what the name for the style of fuel caps I have is, but
it's the, you know, the flush variety.
those
don't have to be too far off of level with the top of the wing before they
can start leaking fuel, I would say it's probably, 10 degrees or less.
and it's fairly easy to do that.
Um,
I know that with the
Yeah.
we always had to double check that line.
People had those back on straight and I know on the Mooney once I have
had the experience of accidentally doing that and not noticing it myself.
And then shortly after takeoff, I to Well, I don't know.
For whatever reason, I was looking out at the left wing and I noticed this stream.
It almost looked like smoke, but it was just white.
And I thought, Oh, that's cool.
Except for that's not water vapor.
That's fuel that I'm leaking.
So I had to turn around and go right back into the airport again, then
get that fuel cap on there straight.
So that's a good thing to double check.
once you've got the plain doll button back up, you're going to need to retract
the fuel hose and that grounding strap.
of the time.
I would say you'll have an electric motor on the fuel hose system.
There are some that are manual and they're, they're kind of a pain, Yes,
so one trick that I learned that I, you know, I like to leave everything
ready to go for the next pilot.
And if you don't have somebody there to help you getting that fuel hose
back onto the reel, it could be difficult to get it evenly wound up
across the full width of the reel.
And so one thing that I generally do is I my foot, just like the arch of your foot,
up against the fuel pump as you're pushing the button to retract the fuel hose.
And you can use your foot to kind of push it and right as
it's rolling itself back up.
And make sure that you don't.
Get to the point where the entire fuel hose is all on one side of the
reel and starts getting bound up and
One thing that some airports have on those fuel hose reels is a clutch that
you may have to engage or disengage To be able to pull the fuel hose out Easily
and then you know, you might have to re engage a clutch to get that that motor
to start Uh, to pull on the reel again.
So just be aware of that.
Um, that's usually a, a big black handle that'll be on the side of the reel.
Um, not super common, but it's not exactly rare either.
So we've got our fuel hose in.
Uh, next thing is that, that grounding cable, with those, if they have the
automatic retraction, you can just give it a little tug and it'll start
to, to retract that on its own.
Don't
just let go
Spring mechanism.
Yeah.
And don't just let
Yeah.
then they zip in really quick and you make the airport managers mad because
it only takes a few times of that happening before A, that, that, that
Alligator clip is just destroyed from dragging along the, the ground on its
way back in, but then it also hits the stop inside the cabinet suddenly
and gets ripped off the cable and, you know, messes up that spring mechanism.
So, take a hold of that alligator clip securely, then
give it a tug and walk it in.
You might want to grab your receipt.
Um,
you do want to be sure you sump the new fuel because who knows if there's a leak
in the tank at that little airport or something, maybe there's a big rainstorm
and their tank is full of water and you just pumped it into your airplane.
So definitely, Um, be diligent about checking the fuel and making sure that
there's no water or sediment in it.
Um, especially,
Make sure it's the right color.
yes, all that stuff that you do on a pre flight.
Make sure you do
Yep.
you fuel.
In the event that you're done flying for the day, and it's gonna be, you
know, you're parking the plane for the night, make if it is really cold when
you're filling the plane, top it off every last little bit because morning
the sun comes out it starts to warm up and that fuel is going to expand and
it's going to start draining out all over the ramp and wasting your money.
So, um, leave a little room in there if it's really cold when you're fueling.
As far as how to find fuel, how do you, how do you decide where you want to fuel,
Bill?
You know, I use, I use ForeFlight.
one of the layers on the map is allows you to turn on fuel.
I know they get their data from other places and they
also allow pilots to update.
those fuel amounts right in ForeFlight.
and there are other places I could look for it, but lately I don't,
I don't really do that anymore.
I just look at ForeFlight.
They, ForeFlight even color codes them.
So, you know, if it's green, uh, it means it's one of the,
cheaper fuels in the area.
If it's yellow, it's kind of a mid price fuel.
And if it's red, it's one of the most expensive airports to get fuel.
you could be flying along and just, check along your route and
just look for the cheapest ones.
So that that's what I do.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's true.
check airnav.
com Because there's enough people still flying out there that don't use ForeFlight
and usually complain on the internet about people who do use ForeFlight.
And so they're generally still using AirNav, which would, I mean, AirNav
has been around for a long time.
I mean, I've been flying for more than 20 years and it was
there right in the beginning.
Um, probably the, I would guess the first site that had fuel prices, but
the thing that I use there is what they call great deals reports and that
will, it shows you what the criteria are for getting on that report, but I
think you have to be like the lowest within 50 miles or something like that.
And then they have the, they have some that are highlighted as
super deals that have to be like the cheapest within 150 miles.
And so.
There are times where I'll find something on there that hasn't been updated in
ForeFlight, but that's pretty rare.
It's just kind of another, another method of looking.
A little farther and a little wider for cheap fuel because, one drawback to using
ForeFlight is if you zoom out too far, you won't be able to see all the prices.
And so you might be hiding a good price, and so I do, you know, when I'm using
ForeFlight, I keep it fairly zoomed in, uh, and if you're going on a 1,
000, 1, 500 mile trip, can go 100 or 200 miles off course in the middle of
that trip, and you're only affecting your total trip distance by like 10
miles.
so
some of those really long trips are where those those air nav great deals
reports can you find something that not be right on your path, but might be
worth stopping at anyway.
Those are awesome tips Kent for refueling the airplane.
And I think, you know, like we said at the beginning, I think there's a lot of
people that have just never had experience doing that, so really appreciate you kind
of walking through all those details.
And, uh, um, I hope it helps somebody out there when they get beyond the check ride.
For sure.
And you know, if nothing else, I think the best thing to do is to
go and do this before you have to.
Don't wait until you're on the way home from vacation Sunday
night and have to figure out a new thing because that's where that
get thereitis is going to set in.
Now that you've heard this, go out and try it for yourself and you'll find out
it really is not that big of a deal.
It's an easy thing to do.
It can save you a ton of money.
So
go out there,
That's a great point.
fly safe and have fun.
Awesome.
Thanks again, Kent.
And until next time, we'll see ya.
See ya.
I hope you enjoyed the flight and the latest Beyond the Checkride.
I want to thank Kent for his help on these segments.
He's got a lot of GA experience.
So his insights are really valuable and I hope you're finding them valuable too.
Again, we'd love ideas on what we should cover in those segments.
We've already thought of things that we should have put
in our first one last week.
We'll probably think of some this week, and going into the future.
so we'll probably redo topics again at some point.
But in the meantime, like I said, we'd love to hear from you on what
you think we should do, or if you have ideas about what we should do,
or if we've forgotten anything that we should add in or, or correct.
So send your thoughts and feedback to me at Bill at studentpilotcast.
com.
You can also reach out to me on X with the handle Billwill.
That's Bravo, India, Lima, Lima, Whiskey, India, Lima.
And as usual, we'd love to hear from you.
So keep the suggestions and the comments coming.
Like I said, I was loving this.
I had a lot of hard work and study ahead of me, which I had already started.
I was preparing for the written and eventually would
be preparing for my check ride.
And of course, learning and trying to understand what this instrument
flying thing was all about.
I had purchased and watched the instrument course from sporties.
But I was also getting my feet wet with Shepard Air, which I'll definitely
talk about in a future episode as I got ready to take the written.
Those programs at Shepard Air would prove invaluable as I've
been progressing in my certs and ratings, so I'll cover that soon.
For now, I was flying and I was trying to get sharper with my skills.
It's a lot, but I knew it'd be worth it.
It seemed far away, but looking back, it would be just a blink of an eye and
I'd be sitting in front of the DPE.