crablab
11th Jun 2017, 16:01
Recently, I was flying a round trip in a C177. When I departed the home airfield I had around 3 hours fuel on board (I forget the exact tank figures but it was spread fairly evenly).
Upon arrival at my destination the aircraft was left on a slight slope, which, in retrospect may have caused some fuel to crossfeed from the left tank into the right. (I don't know, it's equally likely from later events that there was a crossfeed issue and only the left tank was being emptied.) Anyway, prior to departure I dipped the tanks and discovered I had 10L in left, 50L in right - about 2 hours for a 30 minute flight. In retrospect I should have considered the imbalance strange and investigated further but I have seen similar imbalances in Cessna's and as previously mentioned, there was a slight lean to the right).
About 10 minutes after departure, with fuel selector on "both", the engine almost stopped. A quick change to the right tank (which I remembered having more fuel) prevented a complete failure and in air restart.
So, my question is, what could be the issue? A friend has advised that the Cessna manual advises that there may be fuel feed issues when one tank is low but this is not described well and goes on to contradict itself. Could it be a crossfeed issue? Or maybe a breather valve problem? Any thoughts welcome.
Upon arrival at my destination the aircraft was left on a slight slope, which, in retrospect may have caused some fuel to crossfeed from the left tank into the right. (I don't know, it's equally likely from later events that there was a crossfeed issue and only the left tank was being emptied.) Anyway, prior to departure I dipped the tanks and discovered I had 10L in left, 50L in right - about 2 hours for a 30 minute flight. In retrospect I should have considered the imbalance strange and investigated further but I have seen similar imbalances in Cessna's and as previously mentioned, there was a slight lean to the right).
About 10 minutes after departure, with fuel selector on "both", the engine almost stopped. A quick change to the right tank (which I remembered having more fuel) prevented a complete failure and in air restart.
So, my question is, what could be the issue? A friend has advised that the Cessna manual advises that there may be fuel feed issues when one tank is low but this is not described well and goes on to contradict itself. Could it be a crossfeed issue? Or maybe a breather valve problem? Any thoughts welcome.