Piper Aircraft - when to switch tanks?

FlyboyZR1

FlyboyZR1

New Member
I'm curious to know what rule people use when deciding to switch tanks during flight.

I'm used to Cessna's where you really don't have to worry about it ... but I had a CFI tell me to switch on the top of every hour. I've also heard to run off one tank for an hour, then switch to the other for another two hours.

What method does everyone use when switching tanks?
 
Top of the hour is just convenient to remember. Get something that works for you, and stick with it. The only Piper I fly is a Seneca, so unless something goes wrong, I can fly on "BOTH" for a while.
 
I agree with Kellwolf. People use different methods that work conveniently for them. One that I like involves switching tanks every 1/2 hour. When the minute hand is on the left side of your watch, you should be on the left tank. Of course, if you have a =digital= watch....
 
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I agree with Kellwolf. People use different methods that work conveniently for them. One that I like involves switching tanks every 1/2 hour. When the minute hand is on the left side of your watch, you should be on the left tank. Of course, if you have a =digital= watch....

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hey, that sounds like a good method. I usually just switch on the top of the hour, but that sounds like a cool way of doing it.
 
I always sucked at switching tanks.

That is why it was on the landing checklist, so atleast you won't run out near the ground. I only ever ran a tank out of fuel once, in cruise.
 
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I always sucked at switching tanks.

That is why it was on the landing checklist, so atleast you won't run out near the ground. I only ever ran a tank out of fuel once, in cruise.

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I take it you did most of your training in high-wings?
 
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I always sucked at switching tanks.

That is why it was on the landing checklist, so atleast you won't run out near the ground. I only ever ran a tank out of fuel once, in cruise.

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At least you were then sure that you'd used all the useable from that tank.......
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I keep one of those little Westbend oven timers on the yoke or my kneeboard. I set it to go off every half hour, switch tanks, reset timer.

We had a 53 Bonanza go down in the pattern at KTRI with an instructor and pre-solo student on board, after forgetting to switch, and running one tank dry. The engine quit on downwind and the airplane went into a spin before they could get control of it, or get the other tank going with the wobble pump.
 
In the Apache I time the tanks. I know I have a good solid hours on the aux tanks so I write down the time I pout the tanks on and then set the panel clock to show two hours ahead. When the hands line up I switch back to the mains.

This isn't exactly what you're looking for but that's how I manage four tanks in a twin engine.
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For my students, I have them switch after a half hour of flight, then every hour after (if the tanks are full at the start). If you go longer than an hour, in our Cherokee and the Warrior I fly regularly, anyways, then you tend to notice the wing getting heavy on the fuller tank.
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I also ingrain in their heads to make sure they do the pre-landing check and make sure they are on the fullest tank when they do.
 
When I flew skydivers last summer, sometimes I would only fill the left tank when I was in a hurry. The C-182 I flew also had a noticable left roll built in. When I had a full tank in the left and the right was empty it could be a real pain trying to stay level. If I rembered I would make sure my descents were to the right so I wouldn't run dry. If I went to the left, the fuel lines would run dry. Sputter, sputter.

If you have a good area to do it in, try running a fuel tank dry on porpose with an advanced student. It will show them what an acctual engine failure looks like. Do this at altitude of course, and over a good colection of landing sites. When you want to recover, switch the fuel slector back on and lower the nose to spin up the prop.

I really think a CFI canidate should see this at least once.
 
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I take it you did most of your training in high-wings?

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Yes...but the majority of my light aircraft time is in PA28s...1000+ hours. My question is if Piper can put a warning light in the panel that the pitot heat is OFF, then we can't we get a low fuel light?

My solution to the pitot heat OFF warning light was to just fly with the pitot heat ON all the time. I was a big fan of no red/orange lights on under normal conditions. My superiors disagreed.
 
I try to flight right tank 0-29 past the hour and left tank 30-59, see where I'm going with this?
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Also another tip I've found was to always take off on left tank, incase you need to switch tanks in a hurry because it's easier to wack it down to right than reach down and pull it up to left. Ah, bet you never thought of that
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I also forgot to swtich tanks exactly every half hour sometimes on X-countries, particularly, when the top of the hour occured while I was being vectored around. I just made sure I wrote down what time I switched on my planning sheet, that way I could make it work out in the end.

We also had someone run a tank dry approaching the pattern. Put it down alright on a golf course.......... and then the nose dug in. Piolt was fine, airplane ended up getting scrapped. I still have a piece of Purdue 13 on my wall.
 
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Put it down alright on a golf course.......... and then the nose dug in.

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Was the pilot at least courteous enough to replace the divet?
 
One more time to switch tanks in a Piper, If the engine quits. Too many people have wrecked perfectly good airplanes, sadly many of those people also hurt or killed their passengers and themselves. One of the first things you must remember to do if the engine quits in a piper is to try changing which tank you are drawing fuel from.
 
I've been flying an Aztec quite a bit lately - here's what I do.

I switch back and forth every hour, starting with the outboards. With the way I run the engines, I plan on being on the ground after 4 hours max, so it's easy to keep track from a timing standpoint.

Here's the best trick: get a Westbend timer clock that can run 2 SIMULTANEOUS TIMERS at once. Put it on a yoke clip right in front of you. Use #1 timer for the left tank (or in the Aztec's case, outboards) and #2 timer for the right tank (inboards). Start and stop each timer as you use fuel from each tank, so you always have a running tally of how much time/fuel you have used from each tank at any given point during the flight. Plus, if you land someplace you can just stop the timer, then re-start it when you fire up again if you don't top the tanks.

This timing system has worked in the Aztec and the old style Cessna 206's (no "both" selector position, just L and R) that I have been flying for the last year or so.

One thing I would NEVER recommend is using one tank from takeoff until it's almost empty, then switching tanks. Why? What if you have an inflight fuel selector valve malfunction, making it impossible to switch to a different tank. Now you've screwed yourself; you've drained your only usable tank and you may not have enough gas left to divert someplace. I recommend a switching system that will leave you enough fuel in your active tank, at any given time, to confidently divert and land. Alternatively, you can test your fuel selector valve early in the flight to verify that it is working properly.

There is an interesting story behind this last recommendation (a "close call" situation involving myself and another pilot) but I won't get into that now...to protect the innnocent
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As far as testing the valve, I have my students taxi on the emptiest tank, then switch tanks for the run-up. This tests the valve before you even lift off. It also gives you a few minutes running on each tank so you can verify good fuel from each.
 
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