Cessna Fuel Selectors

A good friend of mine got married recently in Phoenix. And, what better way to gain more flight experience than go on a long trip? So, as soon as I knew the wedding date, I reserved the FBO's G1000 Cessna 182 for the flight. Milen and I actually made a very similar flight almost a year ago to date -- but we only went to Sedona, so not quite as far south as Phoenix.

The original plan was to go to Phoenix all in one day -- especially if there was tailwind en route. That would be just under nine hours of flying time; I thought I could certainly manage that, especially with a capable aircraft with a good autopilot. But, as luck might have had it, on the day I flew, I had excellent VFR weather, but no tailwinds. So I had to scrap the plan of making it to Arizona in one day, and I decided to overnight in Las Vegas instead. An en-route fuel stop would need to be made in Reno.

The trip to Reno required some thought about good fuel management, although with 87 gallons usable fuel, I estimated that I'd still have more than 30 gallons left at my destination. Usually, Cessna fuel management is brain-dead simple: just leave the fuel selector in the "Both" position -- which causes fuel to be burned from both tanks at an approximately even rate. Note that I said "approximately": sometimes, for one reason or another, things do not quite work exactly right. This time, on the way down to Reno, just on the east side of the Cascades, I observed a noticeable difference in the indicated fuel quantity between the left and the right tank. In my mind, there could have been several problems: faulty fuel gauge, plane not burning from the left tank, blocked fuel supply line from the left tank, etc. Given that I had enough altitude to restart the engine in case the problem was with the fuel line, I put the fuel selector valve on "Left". The engine continued running, and I was slightly relieved. Now: is it a faulty gauge? It would take a while to find out, because the fuel quantity indicators in G1000 equipped C182's only indicate up to 36 gallons per tank (the actual capacity is 43.5 gallons usable) -- so for the first 7.5 gallons (about 30-45 minutes of flight, depending on the fuel flow), the pilot cannot observe any movement on the gauge. Fortunately, somewhere between Bend and Lakeview, OR, the left gauge started moving as well. If it hadn't moved, my plan was to divert to Lakeview, in southern Oregon.

As I was considering my situation, I sure was glad that I printed out the JeppView approach plates not only for my departure and destination airports but also for most airpors en-route. What if the fuel gauge did not move? What if the engine did not continue running when I moved the fuel selector to "Left"? I probably would not have touched the fuel selector if I had been in instrument conditions, but I sure would have liked to make an instrument approach to the Redmond, OR airport. :-)