Fuel gauges whacked

[mshac]

When I was learning to fly, half the beater flight school 152s and 172s didn't have reliable fuel gauges, so I learned early on to visually inspect the fuel level before every flight, and when topping off, always check to make sure my estimated burn and the actual burn were in the same ballpark. We used a glass straw fuel level indicator that worked great on those planes. You could dip it and see exactly how many gallons you had.

When I was flying my Twin Bonanza, some guy had created a dipstick that went sideways into the tank to measure fuel. He sold lots of them to other Twin Bo owners.

Today with my Skymaster I always reset my JPI when I top off, and I use that to determine fuel on board. My analog gauges seem to work fine, but I still never use them as the primary information source.