Walk Arounds are Getting More Important!

The increasing price of avgas is having an interesting effect and that is adding up to making doing better walk arounds a really good idea.

AvWeb recently carried a story about a commercial light aircraft in New Zealand that suffered a gas theft. This probably shouldn't be a surprise to anyone - avgas is worth a lot of money these days. In this case the thieves got away with 26 gallons (100 litres) of fuel, valued at $200.

Avgas is $1.67 this week at Carp, which would make this theft $167, even at the relatively cheaper cost of gas here over New Zealand.

In the case of the aircraft in New Zealand the pilot noticed the theft on his pre-flight inspection and reported it to the police. He gets full marks for doing a good walk around. How many of us fly in somewhere, gas up and then go for lunch, come back jump in and just go, without re-dipping the tanks?

It could be quite a surprise to start up and take-off only find that you only had enough gas left in the tanks to start up and take-off. In this day and age make sure you dip those tanks before you fly!