I have seen water when I drained the sump about three times. One thing I do sometimes, especially when it has rained a lot lately or my tank is not that full is to turn on the fuel valve before I do the preflight. When I get back to the tail I lift the tailwheel a foot or so and put it up and down a few times. On a lot of taildraggers the outlet on the bottom of the fuel tank is not quite at the bottom when the tailwheel is down. If you don't turn on the fuel valve and lift the tail you might have water in your tank that does not make it to the gascolator until the tail comes up during your roll out.
Brian Kraut Engineering Alternatives, Inc. www.engalt.com -----Original Message----- From: krnet-boun...@mylist.net [mailto:krnet-boun...@mylist.net]On Behalf Of Larry H. Sent: Sunday, February 12, 2006 5:13 PM To: KRNET Subject: KR> WATER IN FUEL I started flying in about 1969. I have flown several thousand hours by myself and with friends. During fuel checks before flight from fuel tank drain tests I have never seen water come out in the little tiny test before flight. That did not mean there was no water in there somewhere. One thing that got my attention many years ago was an article that I read in one of the flying magazines on this subject. The writers of the article had conducted tests on several different kinds of airplanes, highwing, low wing . They reported in the article that in some cases they drained 2 or 3 or more gallons of fuel out of the wing tanks before any water would come out. If you think about your flight training, the instructor gave you the little glass test tube and just a few ounces of fuel were drained into it, then you would look at it to see if any water was in the bottom of the test tube. I personally have never seen any with that test, then of course you were to throw/dump that sample down on the ground. I always thought that was a waste of fuel, and certainly do now, heck that would be 50 cents worth now ! The gascolator is the last defense before the fuel gets to your engine, so yes the gascolator should be drained on a regular basis. For you who are buying auto fuel, then dumping it into your fuel tank might want to think about purchasing one of the funnels that are available that have a screen built into them that is capable of filtering water out of your fuel. You would at least know then that you had not dumped water accidentally into your tank. The same funnel can be used even if you are buying gas at an FBO, just put fuel nozzle into the funnel to fill your tanks. I have one that I carried in my Mooney to fill my plane, just in case of course ! Larry H. _______________________________________ Search the KRnet Archives at http://www.maddyhome.com/krsrch/index.jsp to UNsubscribe from KRnet, send a message to krnet-le...@mylist.net please see other KRnet info at http://www.krnet.org/info.html
