Amongst the crop of job adverts I've had to trawl through this week is a remarkable chance to be Country Manager in Denmark. They want a new ruler who can increase their market share. So if you want to blitzkrieg Europe at the command of the Danish armed forces apply now.

Of course armed forces need fuel. I was interested to discover a vacancy for an oil company in Kyrgyzstan. Managing a pileline in some forgotten corner of the world doesn't strike me as an exciting opportunity, though it wouldn't suprise me if the locals made a lot more exciting than it seems. Then again, if you want excitement, how about running a petrol station in Afghanistan? There's a vacancy to run a military fuel depot. Incredible that a position like that is run by civilians these days.

The Day I Had Too Much Fuel

The weather wasn't good. It was a cloudy, very blustery, and there was a constant threat of rain. Still, I had a flying lesson booked so I dutifully turned up and there was the aeroplane parked outside the hangar on the back apron. As usual, I went through the pre-flight checks, which is a technical term for making sure the aeroplane is fit to fly. You always do that when you mean to fly. It's the problem you don't know about that will catch you out.

I found a problem. Part of the checks was to test the fuel to ensure no water had accumulated in the tanks. Water in the fuel stops the engine, and that would spoil your entire flight, to say the least. There wasn't any water, but once I removed the prong from the tap avgas continued to dribble out. Oh brilliant.

My instructor, EF, suggested we had enough fuel for an hours flight even with fuel leaking like that. Unacceptable. I insisted that something was done because there was no guarantee the leak wouldn't get worse in flight. Our emergency repair made it worse. The tap was now running. EF got me a bucket from the hangar and went off to find a toolbox.

The wind was cold, damp, and highly variable. Even with the bucket raised up under the wing, half the leaking fuel seemed to blow into my face. It was an hour and a half of hell before EF returned and fixed the tap.

"All right now? " He asked. Nope. I'd been breathing avgas fumes and it wasn't fun. To this day I cannot remember the flight at all. Except... We didn't run out of fuel.

The Day My Fuel Was Running Out

I'd been a qualified pilot for some time and had arranged to give a joyride with a guy I knew from work. The Cessna 172 was checked out and everything seemed fine. As I recall, the weather was quite good. A mild wind, conveniently down the runway, and some light cloud here and there.

Every ten minutes or so, a pilot should do a series of checks to make sure his instruments are giving him the expected readings. If necessary, adjust the altimeter, the direction indicator, radio frequency, and so on. I looked down at the fuel gauges. The right hand tank was almost down to 20%. What? No way! The tanks were nearly full when we took off and that was only thirty minutes ago.

Better safe than sorry. I said nothing to my passenger but I switched to left tank only, and sure enough, three minutes later, the right tank showed empty. I looked for signs of leakage, both in the cockpit and out under the wing. Nothing. The aeroplane was flying along happily and no sign of any danger. Nonetheless, I decided it was prudent to head home.

The airfield was only fifteen minutes away and we landed without mishap. After I parked the Cessna the tanks were checked visually and guess what? Plenty of avgas sloshing around in there. The fault? A fuel gauge failure. Once I knew that, I told my passenger what had been going on.

"I thought it was a bit funny you'd gone quiet." He said. I chuckled. The conversation may have run out, but at least the fuel hadn't.