Actual aircraft issue during training flight

[foresterpoole]

Well, just as an update, we filled the tanks Friday both times when we went up just for the added weight, winds were 8-10 gusts to 12, all we worked on was Cross wind landings. Managed to land it 1 out if five times without assistance, but it hit pretty hard and bounced. On an upside, I have got an hour worth of setup to landing and traffic patterns under less than favorable conditions under my belt, which helped my confidence.

[MrMorden]

But "maximum fuel all the time" is not the only rational choice.

Of course not. But, I can't think of a time I didn't top the tanks except when flying with two people in the SkyCatcher or making a return flight when I had only used 1/4 to get there and 1/4 to get home. However, I have never flown an airplane that has 6 hours fuel capacity, etc. When I owned airplanes or was involved in a partnership, we always topped the tanks upon landing. I have never had a reason to depart with less than full fuel except in the SkyCatcher when I never departed with less than 18 gallons (3/4) when there were 2 people on board. This is how I do it. Others might do it differently for one reason or another.

That might be part of the difference right there as well. If I had an airplane with, say, 15 gallons of fuel and ~5gph fuel consumption, I might very well have a "full fuel all the time" policy. The weight penalty would be smaller, and the margins as a percentage of available fuel tank size would be correspondingly smaller. That would make it easier to run into fuel trouble in flight on partial fuel.

As it stands, my CT can hold about seven hours worth of fuel, and and I never carry that much fuel unless I'm on a long cross country flight, simply because of the inefficiencies of hauling an extra 50-100lb around that's not providing a benefit. So I guess I'd amend my response to include "depending on the airplane and its fuel capabilities".