So I Almost Ran Out of Fuel

Granted, I almost ran out of said fuel in a sim – where you can print your own money and fix planes with free mouse clicks – but the lesson I learned was an important one.

It's a situation you really don't ever want to be in.  Well before you're handed the keys to an airplane, an instructor is supposed to have drilled the idea of proper planning for just about anything into your head.  That's all nice information for your average fly-by-day weekend warrior, but it becomes even more important to your instrument flight rules fliers: running out of fuel and not being able to see the ground doesn’t quite give you a fighting chance to set down somewhere forgiving.

I, of course, strapped into a plane, knowing the weather was low even at the departure airport, and set off for an airport buried in mountains.  The only thought in my mind when planning fuel was "the flight takes about 50 minutes, so two hours of fuel looks good."  Why?  That’s the value I generally always use to get there.  I didn’t give any thought to hold fuel, alternate fuel, or contingency fuel, which ended up getting me close to trouble.

Here’s how it all shook out:

One of my favorite routes is Dulles (IAD) to Roanoke (ROA) and back.  It’s short, and when the weather isn’t ideal – read as “less than nice, but not terrible” – you often have to shoot a somewhat challenging LDA approach that brings you down a valley.  Even at the departure airport, though, things weren’t particularly nice.

KIAD 170152Z 00000KT 2SM -DZ BR OVC005 11/10 A3027 RMK AO2 SLP250 P0000 T01060100

For the non-pilots reading this, that's a wonderful combination of low clouds and low visibility, due to drizzle and mist.  This makes approaching and landing at an airport more difficult than normal.

Of course, I paid little attention to the fact that bad weather at IAD often means worse weather down near ROA.  Sadly, that’s something I should know all too well, having spent four years near ROA while at Virginia Tech.  Moreover, one of those years included a trip back to Tech in this same month of November where Interstate 81 got shut down due to an accident caused by poor weather.   I chose the Blue Ridge Parkway as an alternate route, assuming it was something others wouldn’t think of, and would choose Route 11 instead.  Unfortunately, the November weather was all too similar, and I ended up crawling along the Parkway in heavy fog.  My assumption that nobody would be driving on it proved correct, however.

That lesson was apparently forgotten.  Had I bothered to check the weather, I would’ve seen this:
KROA 170254Z 14003KT 1/2SM FG VV002 11/11 A3025 RMK AO2 SLP244 60001 T01110111 56004 $

Again, for the non-pilots, that’s worse visibility than at IAD, because of fog.  Beyond that, I would’ve also checked a few alternates around ROA to be sure I could land there if the weather at ROA was too bad.  Alas, I did not.


Everything was normal until I got closer to ROA and finally decided to check the weather.  Even then I didn’t really put the weather together with the minimums on the charted approaches (the weather was below the minimums for all of the approaches at ROA).  As I got closer to the airspace controlled by ROA Approach, the controller restated the weather and asked my intentions.  My response was what most pilots say while still in denial: “we’ll give it a shot and head to an alternate if we can’t make it in.”

At that point, I reduced my thrust to slow the aircraft down in hopes that arriving later would mean the weather would clear up some.  This move ended up costing me extra fuel though that I really didn't have, as I didn’t add any contingency fuel.  Of course, had I actually looked at the forecast I would’ve seen that the move was futile, as weather wasn’t supposed to improve until the following morning.

Getting closer to ROA, I started looking at the weather at other fields:

KBCB 170255Z AUTO 00000KT 1 3/4SM BR OVC016 11/11 A3025 RMK AO2
KPSK 170255Z AUTO 00000KT 10SM OVC013 11/11 A3024 RMK AO2


Since Blacksburg (BCB) was a little closer, I chose to try an approach there, despite the lower visibility.  I flew the LOC/DME Runway 12 approach, which is an approach I’ve flown before outside of the sim, one snowy February day in a Cessna 207.  I flew it down to the minimums twice before deciding to try somewhere else, making nervous glances at my fuel on the second approach.  Having looked at Pulaski (PSK) before, I decided to try an approach there.

The ILS Z Runway 6 approach into PSK was nice and easy.  With the glideslope and increased visibility, I was able to spot the approach lights while still pretty far out with no issue.

By the time I’d landed, I had about 45 minutes of fuel left, so I ended up landing with a reasonable amount.  The issue, however, is that it all came down to chance.  I got lucky that the weather at PSK was as good as it was.  Had it not been that good, 45 minutes of fuel may not have been enough to get to another destination, make an approach, and land.  Had I properly planned, I would have planned better for the weather by adding fuel to accommodate any issues it might have caused.

While the sim doesn’t have the same dire consequences as the real world, the stress I was feeling in the situation will hopefully stick with me.  I’m hoping it’s memorable enough to push me to plan all my flights such that I won’t find myself in a similar real world situation.

Actual/Simulated Instrument (Act/Sim): 0.0 - 13.7 (of 40)
Despite all of this happening in a sim, it wasn't in a sim approved by the FAA for logging time.

Always Have an Out

No matter how simple the flight, there's often a learning experience that you can reflect upon to improve your future flights.  Each time I fly, I venture to fix something from the last flight, find something to learn from, or share something as a learning experience for others.

One of the things on my last flight that came up is always have an out.

In the middle of putting the plane on the ground, I had a moment where I actually thought to myself:

"Make a call now, or end up as the next YouTube pilot failure."

This is a screen capture during that situation.  I had just bounced.  If you were in my situation, looking down the runway, what would you have done?  While I know my exact location on the runway at this moment (thanks to the GPS in my ContourGPS - though this particular frame is from the GoPro), I'm not going to tell you because the only information I had for my decision is what you see right now.  As you can see, there's still a reasonable amount of runway left, and I didn't bounce too high.

What's the call?

I pressed on.  Why?  I know my ground roll is normally about 500-600' and I clearly had that and more left, despite being slightly off the ground.  I delayed my call, and that's when the line above popped up.  It was only when the plane didn't settle in the following few seconds that I decided to go around.

00:27 - [Bounce] Split second decision: land, there's still room
00:28 - [Bounce, bounce]
00:30 - Make a call now, or end up as the next YouTube pilot failure...go around.

[Video was here until Contour closed down for a bit, and it got lost.]
If you watch the video, you can see the plane actually settles right as I applied full power.  If you pause it right at that point, you can see a strip of asphalt off to the right of the runway.  That strip of asphalt is about 720' from the end of the runway, so I could've still stopped by my own and the official Cessna ground roll numbers had I not decided to go around.  Would that have been smart, though?  My argument would be no.  If I really had to get on the ground, sure, but why cut it so close when I could always go around?

Always remember your other options.  In my case there was no emergency, so there was no harm in going around provided I made that call with enough room to get back up off the ground.



I wasn't out of the woods after that call, though.  Literally.

After I lift off, you can see some rather imposing trees approaching quickly.  From having flown in before, I knew there was an opening to the right.  As I got closer, through both a call by Phil and my own constant search for an out, I turned right to give myself more room between myself and the trees.  I would assert that I would've cleared them without the turn, but the turn would have only given me more clearance in my direct flight path, so I took it.

We've been taught to look for outs at all times, but a lot of the time our margins of error are rather high in normal operations.  As I joked with another pilot after finally putting the plane on the ground, landing is a lot different on a 5500' runway compared to 2000'.  I can float for ages on a 5500' runway like and still land safely, but most instructors tell you early on that if you don't like the landing picture, go around, no matter how long the runway.  We're also taught as pilots to always keep an eye out for landing fields, especially when flying single engine and lower to the ground.  When you get into instrument flight, you start dealing with alternate airports, and with longer flights you may also get into intermediate, or en route, alternates.  You're always taught to have an out, but do you always have one in mind?

Looking for an out is something pilots are taught from the very beginning, but I don't think it's ever placed in generic terms.  We're taught to have specific outs in mind - alternate airports, go arounds, open fields, and so on - but it's not often that you hear an instructor explain the merits of always having a backup plan in general.  For some pilots, it's just a natural part of aeronautical decision making, but for others it's not necessarily so.  Some pilots need things spelled out, simply as a part of the way they learn.

The next time you fly, or even the next time you're driving, think ahead of your situation.  If [something] happens, you will [react in some way].  It sounds somewhat obvious, but think of the last time someone stomped on the brakes in front of you, and you had little time to react.  For a split second there, you almost thought you were going into the back of that person's car.  If there was a shoulder to your right, could you have used that?  Probably, and that would be a nice resource.  Without thinking of that ahead of time, though, the only reaction in your mind was stopping behind the car in front of you.  That thinking ahead gives your mind the opportunity to calculate everything ahead of time so that you're able to make quick decisions.

Always have an out.  Always remember that you have an out.  Always take that out when you doubt that your current course can continue safely.