Engine failure today and forced landing.

[Tom Baker]

Buckaroo, I really doubt there is anything wrong with your airplane, other than you un ported the fuel pick up in the tank that had all your fuel. The sight tubes do not directly correspond to the gallons printed on the sticker. If the level is in the middle of the tube you have 5 gallons. If it is all the way to the top you have 10.5 or more. You have to interpolate in between. What I just said only applies if the wings are level and you are coordinated. The fuel tanks are long and narrow and if you tilt the tank the fuel will flow to the inboard of one tank showing more fuel, and to the outboard of the other showing less fuel. Because of this if one tank is empty and you fly uncoordinated you can push the fuel outboard in the tank that still has fuel. If that happens you have a situation like happened to you. Next time you look up and one side has fuel and the other does not make sure you keep fuel in the sight tube on the side that has fuel.

 

[FlyingMonkey]

Nice landing given the conditions, and I'm glad you are okay!

 

[FlyingMonkey]

One of the first things I did when I got my airplane was to calibrate the factory dipstick.  My airplane sits with a "list" as well, the right wing tip is over two inches lower than the left.  If the tanks are full and I park on a hill, fuel will gush out of the right tank vent.

Anyway, the factory stick was *way* off on mine.  About 2-3 gallons on the right and 5-6 on the left.  I put new marks on the stick for 5 & ten gallons on each side, after adding known quantities in each tanks and measuring immediately.  I marked the sight tubes at the same time.

My personal rule of thumb is to not take off unless the sight tube is half full on *each* side.  I won't take off with less than that per side, even if the other side is full.  It's just too easy with one side dry to unport the other side and hear the terrible silence. 

[John Vance]

If there's not a similar check valve in the SW, could that plus a misleading indication by the sight tube stickers be the culprit? The missing fuel in the right tank is a mystery but if I were in that situation, I can see myself not holding perfectly coordinated flight while looking up at the tube. We all know how challenging perfect coordination is in the CT even without an emergency in progress.  If there's really only 2 or 3 gallons remaining in the right tank, it wouldn't take much to unport the tube on that side. 

[Buckaroo]

Here's a little movie from today! Didn't plan on posting a educational movie or one for insurance coverage! ??

the movie starts by me showing the right tank tube with 9 gallons of fuel. So why did the fuel totally disappear back to level flight? Then the fuel magically reappears after the forced landing? 

 

[CT2kflyer]

Buckaroo:

I fly a 2003/4 manufacture CT2k, and I had the same condition.  Once, I was waiting for clearance to fly into the Washington DC SFRA, so I put my plane into  a right-hand orbit for 10 minutes or so.  What happened is, that my left tank was empty and my right tank had all of it's fuel shifted outboard... thus I unported the fuel lines and ran my engine out of fuel at the end of the 10 minutes.  I immediately went into engine-out procedures, and looked for a field to put it down in while simultaneously going to an emergency squawk and trying to restart my engine.  I got two restarts that died after about 20 seconds, but I did get some altitude out of the restarts.  I got a 3rd restart about 50 feet about my emergency landing field ( which was a field with standing water between the rows of something..... it would have been a bad outcome.), and that one held.  So I fly to the nearest airport about 10-12 miles away, and land.  Turns out I had 7 gallons of fuel in the tanks..... but by flying somewhat uncoordinated, slopped all of my fuel into one wing-tank, and then tilted it away for the fuel line.  I probably had less than 30 hours in the plane total at that time.  I was fairly new to flying, and very new to my aircraft.  

The design of the plane, and my unfamiliarity with the fuel system put me into a hazardous condition.

Since that day, I have flown my plane coast to coast, and north to south around this country.  I flew to the highest airport in the nation last fall.  I fly all over, but I have two specific fuel related rules I follow religiously.

1.  I dip my tanks every day I fly.  I know specifically how much fuel I have in the tanks before I fly......... always.  I don't rely on the sight tubes at all.  I look at them now and then, but I never actually use them for flight calculations. 

2.  I ALWAYS refuel  upon landing,  when 1/2 or more of my of my fuel has been consumed.  When I get below 15-16 gallons, I watch what I'm doing carefully.  I am not going to run myself out of fuel again.  If I am going on a 2 hour flight, I'm gonna have 20 gallons of fuel onboard at take off.  If I'm going on a 3 hour flight, I will have 25-30 gallons of fuel on board at take off.  One time I flew from Hot Springs Arkansas, to Asheville, NC, non-stop ........ 5 + hours.  You can be sure I watched my fuel like a hawk towards the end, and watched the coordinated condition of my aircraft near the end of the flight.  I landed with more than five gallons, but under 10............ probably around 8-9....... but I was very aware of the possibilities.

So, now you know.  Don't trust sight tubes..... use them as reference to determine if there is fuel in the wings, but not how much.  Dip the tanks, and KNOW how much fuel you have before you take-off.  I plan using 5.2 gallons/hr in-flight on trips.  I try to land with two hours remaining.  I know I am overly cautious........... and I'm fine with that.

I was taught never to trust a fuel gauge... it will lie to you at the worst possible time.  Sight tubes do same...... for different reasons.  

 

 

  

 

[Buckaroo]

8 hours ago, CT2kflyer said:

Buckaroo:

I fly a 2003/4 manufacture CT2k, and I had the same condition.  Once, I was waiting for clearance to fly into the Washington DC SFRA, so I put my plane into  a right-hand orbit for 10 minutes or so.  What happened is, that my left tank was empty and my right tank had all of it's fuel shifted outboard... thus I unported the fuel lines and ran my engine out of fuel at the end of the 10 minutes.  I immediately went into engine-out procedures, and looked for a field to put it down in while simultaneously going to an emergency squawk and trying to restart my engine.  I got two restarts that died after about 20 seconds, but I did get some altitude out of the restarts.  I got a 3rd restart about 50 feet about my emergency landing field ( which was a field with standing water between the rows of something..... it would have been a bad outcome.), and that one held.  So I fly to the nearest airport about 10-12 miles away, and land.  Turns out I had 7 gallons of fuel in the tanks..... but by flying somewhat uncoordinated, slopped all of my fuel into one wing-tank, and then tilted it away for the fuel line.  I probably had less than 30 hours in the plane total at that time.  I was fairly new to flying, and very new to my aircraft.  

The design of the plane, and my unfamiliarity with the fuel system put me into a hazardous condition.

Since that day, I have flown my plane coast to coast, and north to south around this country.  I flew to the highest airport in the nation last fall.  I fly all over, but I have two specific fuel related rules I follow religiously.

1.  I dip my tanks every day I fly.  I know specifically how much fuel I have in the tanks before I fly......... always.  I don't rely on the sight tubes at all.  I look at them now and then, but I never actually use them for flight calculations. 

2.  I ALWAYS refuel  upon landing,  when 1/2 or more of my of my fuel has been consumed.  When I get below 15-16 gallons, I watch what I'm doing carefully.  I am not going to run myself out of fuel again.  If I am going on a 2 hour flight, I'm gonna have 20 gallons of fuel onboard at take off.  If I'm going on a 3 hour flight, I will have 25-30 gallons of fuel on board at take off.  One time I flew from Hot Springs Arkansas, to Asheville, NC, non-stop ........ 5 + hours.  You can be sure I watched my fuel like a hawk towards the end, and watched the coordinated condition of my aircraft near the end of the flight.  I landed with more than five gallons, but under 10............ probably around 8-9....... but I was very aware of the possibilities.

So, now you know.  Don't trust sight tubes..... use them as reference to determine if there is fuel in the wings, but not how much.  Dip the tanks, and KNOW how much fuel you have before you take-off.  I plan using 5.2 gallons/hr in-flight on trips.  I try to land with two hours remaining.  I know I am overly cautious........... and I'm fine with that.

I was taught never to trust a fuel gauge... it will lie to you at the worst possible time.  Sight tubes do same...... for different reasons.  

 

 

  

 

Thanks great read and recommendations taken! 

Just prior to my close incident I was doing touch and goes so my plane was all sorts of attitudes. Also I was always in left pattern so the low left tank that emptied should of gravitated some fuel one would think. Then flying out north of the pattern level the right tube indicates 10 or so gallons and to my surprise the left is empty. Immediately rolling left toward the airport 180 degrees on roll out the right tank with moments before is empty as well as the left tube. Engine sputters and shuts down and I cut some alfalfa. Now sitting in the field the right tube indicates 9 gallons as seen in the video. 

WHERE did the 9 gallons go? I wasn't doing turns around a point etc. 

I put a little under five gallons in her to takeoff on the road. The airport was 7 miles away so today I'll go a get a read on how much fuel she measures above the 5 gallon added. 

The plane is grounded until I sort this out. Any positive ideas are appreciated!

 Thanks 

 

 

[FlyingMonkey]

10 hours ago, CT2kflyer said:

Buckaroo:

So, now you know.  Don't trust sight tubes..... use them as reference to determine if there is fuel in the wings, but not how much.  Dip the tanks, and KNOW how much fuel you have before you take-off.  I plan using 5.2 gallons/hr in-flight on trips.  I try to land with two hours remaining.  I know I am overly cautious........... and I'm fine with that.

I was taught never to trust a fuel gauge... it will lie to you at the worst possible time.  Sight tubes do same...... for different reasons.  

 

 

  

 

Hmm...I respect your conservative fuel management, but I have a somewhat different take on things.  I think the sight tubes are *very* trustworthy, and I do manage fuel based on what they say.  However, there are a few caveats:

1)  Only trust the quantity information they give in level flight in smooth air.  They bounce around too much in other conditions, but they can still give a "ballpark" fuel state if you watch them closely for a bit.  And only trust the quantity at all if you have calibrated and marked them.  The factory stickers are worse than useless, they are often dangerously wrong.

2)  The tubes give *great* information about whether there is fuel in a tank.  This is more important to the starvation issue than how much is there.  As CharlieTango says:  "If you can see fuel, so can the engine".  So make sure you can see fuel in both tubes.

As I said in a previous post, fuel halfway up on each sight tube (about 5 gallons) is minimum takeoff fuel for me.  In that condition I might run around the pattern or dash to a nearby airport to get fuel, but I'm not going anywhere.  I have landed with less than that at the end of a long leg, but not much.  And in those circumstances I'm  very careful to keep the fuel close to even in the tanks with uncoordinated flight.  I want to see fuel at the very top of each sight tube (~10 gallons/side) or more if I'm really traveling.

The most important point to me is to NOT LET A TANK RUN DRY.  If you have 3 gallons or more in each tank, you are not going to starve the engine in a turn.  Less than that and it's a possibility.  You don't have to be afraid of letting your fuel get low if you are close to your destination, but you do have to manage where the fuel is.  I have red marks on each sight tube at the ~2.5 gallon level.  Those are my "you have to be on the ground by here" marks.  I've never come close to landing with that little fuel.         

 

 

[Roger Lee]

I agree with Andy. The sight tubes are reliable, but not if you don't understand what you're doing with flight coordination. If there is fuel in the tank and you do not unport it to the outside edge of the tank then a fuel must be in the tube because it's open on both ends on the tank side of the bulkhead plate. All you have to do if your not sure is tip the wing slightly to see if you have fuel in the tank or you don't.

I also agree that you should never let a tank run dry because it's easy to correct.

[Tom Baker]

1 hour ago, Buckaroo said:

Thanks great read and recommendations taken! 

Just prior to my close incident I was doing touch and goes so my plane was all sorts of attitudes. Also I was always in left pattern so the low left tank that emptied should of gravitated some fuel one would think.  

Even though you were making left turns in the pattern you were likely skidding the airplane around those turns. The big one is not enough rudder on climb out. I have enough time sitting in the right seat with students doing pattern work to know this is a real possibility.

You did mention your vents. They are easy to check, remove your fuel caps and blow through them. Also when installed the bevel cut in the hood of the vents should be exposed to the front of the airplane to provide some positive pressure.

[Buckaroo]

6 minutes ago, Tom Baker said:

Even though you were making left turns in the pattern you were likely skidding the airplane around those turns. The big one is not enough rudder on climb out. I have enough time sitting in the right seat with students doing pattern work to know this is a real possibility.

You did mention your vents. They are easy to check, remove your fuel caps and blow through them. Also when installed the bevel cut in the hood of the vents should be exposed to the front of the airplane to provide some positive pressure.

So where did the 9 gallons of fuel go showing both empty and then reappearing as seen in the movie in the field? 

[Buckaroo]

As a refresher if my left wing is almost dry and the right is showing say 3/4 full what is the fastest and safest method of getting fuel to the left wing? 

[FlyingMonkey]

14 minutes ago, Buckaroo said:

So where did the 9 gallons of fuel go showing both empty and then reappearing as seen in the movie in the field? 

If you were flying in a skid, the fuel might have moved outboard and not gotten to the sight tubes, and thus the fuel line.  Once it was sitting on the ground the skid was gone and the fuel "reappeared".  

IIRC, there is a slosh baffle in the tank too, so once fuel gets outboard, it can take a bit for it to slosh back through the baffle and show up in the sight tubes again.

 

 

[Roger Lee]

Use your rudder peddle and put the ball one full ball out to the left. Just remember the fuel will follow the ball. It is not a fast transfer, but the right tank would then feed the engine and transfer fuel to the left tank.

As a rule of thumb:

For everyday flying fly 1/2 ball out to the left and the fuel will most likely drain equally. If you're flying a long distance you can set the rudder trim for this. If all you are doing is touch and goes no use worrying about.

[Buckaroo]

11 minutes ago, FlyingMonkey said:

If you were flying in a skid, the fuel might have moved outboard and not gotten to the sight tubes, and thus the fuel line.  Once it was sitting on the ground the skid was gone and the fuel "reappeared".  

IIRC, there is a slosh baffle in the tank too, so once fuel gets outboard, it can take a bit for it to slosh back through the baffle and show up in the sight tubes again.

 

 

This is the part that gives me the creeps! One moment I'm comforted by seeing 9 gallons of beautiful petrol in the right tube. I roll left level and a Demond grabs all my fuel followed by ones worst flying condition. Then the fuel reappears in the field.

My wife is really getting scared to fly now. She belted out "sell that thing".?

 

[Buckaroo]

18 minutes ago, FlyingMonkey said:

If you were flying in a skid, the fuel might have moved outboard and not gotten to the sight tubes, and thus the fuel line.  Once it was sitting on the ground the skid was gone and the fuel "reappeared".  

IIRC, there is a slosh baffle in the tank too, so once fuel gets outboard, it can take a bit for it to slosh back through the baffle and show up in the sight tubes again.

 

 

I just made a fast 30 degree banked turn to the left 180 degrees leveled and it was gone! 

[FlyingMonkey]

17 minutes ago, Buckaroo said:

This is the part that gives me the creeps! One moment I'm comforted by seeing 9 gallons of beautiful petrol in the right tube. I roll left level and a Demond grabs all my fuel followed by ones worst flying condition. Then the fuel reappears in the field.

My wife is really getting scared to fly now. She belted out "sell that thing".?

 

Just keep some fuel in each tank, check the tubes periodically, and balance as Roger said.  You will never have this problem again.  Especially now that you are very aware of it!  I have over 400hrs in my airplane and have never encountered this problem because I knew from reading this site for a long time about the fuel transfer thing.  

It's the kind of thing that if you don't know about it, it's a potential danger (I have fuel in a tank, why did my engine just stop?!?), but once you are aware of it and how to mitigate, it becomes a non-issue.  Every airplane has quirks, this is one of the CT's.

Honestly, the POH should contain the fuel transfer procedure and a recommendation not to fly with a dry tank.  The engineers tried to make the fuel system as simple as possible to prevent fuel starvation issues from switching tanks, but they just moved the starvation pea under a different shell.

[FlyingMonkey]

25 minutes ago, Buckaroo said:

I just made a fast 30 degree banked turn to the left 180 degrees leveled and it was gone! 

In a coordinated turn, there should be no issue and both fuel tanks should stay ported if there is fuel in them.  That said, the CT is a "challenging" airplane to keep coordinated, and it's easy to be in a slight slip or skid and not realize it.  This is especially true in bumpy air.  Also, many CTs don't have their ball (or EFIS) mounted 100% level, so it might not be perfectly accurate as to what the airplane is doing.  If that's the case the ball could have been dead center and you still might have been in a skid.

 

[Ed Cesnalis]

When you lowered your wing your instincts were close.  The fuel will flow towards the lowered wing including the engine if you are on a constant heading but you can have a low wing and fail to transfer the fuel towards the lowered wing because other forces may overcome gravity.

The fuel follows the ball, better to use it as a guide and probably the rudder to transfer.

After you leveled the wings back you went back to your original condition which caused you to run out of fuel.  If you use your rudder and keep remaining fuel visible it will flow towards the engine.  This technique should prevent you from sideslipping (the wrong way) for a crosswind landing.   If your remaining fuel disappears on final you need to crab not slip.

To manage fuel in flight you need to know how off your slip/skid ball is. Calibrate it in flight by changing the fuel levels in left and right tubes up and down until you find the middle where your nose is in the wind.  This is your ball needs to be to be coordinated.

 

[Mac Bowden]

Buckaroo,

Great outcome from a heart stopping moment.

I love the bit about taking off from the road. I don't think the roads are wide enough for me to that in Ireland! My 2003 Ct2k has the long wings with no winglets or turned down ends giving me 30' wingspan. If the plane is not perfectly level in the hangar it's a problem trying to read fuel content via the site tubes. As Roger said earlier they are accurate if the marks are applied correctly. I made up my own mahogany dip stick and marked it at various intervals whilst filling the tanks. I find the fuel leaves a good telltale on my dipstick unlike the alloy one supplied.

After 9 years of ownership and 750 hours of enjoyment is it an issue for me? No way! Even making an sea crossing from Plymouth, England to Cherbourg France with 85 miles of open sea I loved every second.

Mac

[Doug G.]

Glad you are ok and kudos on setting her down on her feet.

One peripheral thing that I haven't seen mentioned here is that the accuracy of the ball is sometimes compromised by the mushroom being off kilter or the Dynon no being mounted level. This is correctable.

 I do not think this would have affected your issue. Just a point of information.

[Flying Bozo]

In the earlier post I was talking about the sticker for fuel being higher than correct. I was wrong, it might be too low and need to be recalibrated because if the sitcker is too low then less actual fuel will read like more fuel.

Larry

[Roger Lee]

The sticker is kind of useless. Right at the top of the tube will be 10.5 gal. At the 3/4 mark on the tube is about 7.5 gal. Half way down the tube is 5 gal. and 1/4 full tube is 2.5 gal. provided your are in level flight. Trying to split hairs any more than this isn't good fuel management.  Tipping the wings slightly one way then the other should answer all your questions about fuel level at that time. When I do a wing inspection and install new sight tubes al always just put in 5 gals and mark the tube as such for the owner.

 

If you're down at the 2.5 gal mark on both sight tubes, Why aren't you on the ground.

[FlyingMonkey]

If you want to transfer fuel into a tank, you are doing it right if the fuel level in the tube goes DOWN when you are transferring the fuel.  The wing will be lower than the other wing and the fuel will slosh away from the pickup and sight tube.  But if you do it for 10-20 minutes, then re-level the wings, you'll find you have more fuel on that side than you did before.  

Just remember fuel flows downhill, and put the wing you want to move fuel into lower than the other one.

[Tom Baker]

6 hours ago, Buckaroo said:

So where did the 9 gallons of fuel go showing both empty and then reappearing as seen in the movie in the field? 

Obviously it was still in the tank, but at the outboard end instead of where the sight tube is.