# Small Aircraft question



## Whisper (Mar 12, 2013)

I’ve seen stories where a pilot of a small plane low on fuel lands on a stretch of road and fills up at a local filling station. Is this something made up or can they really do this in a pinch?

Also, I’m looking for a small aircraft type that can hold the pilot and maybe four passengers and gear, but is fairly short range. Any suggestions?


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## movieman (Mar 12, 2013)

Not sure about filling up, but I once met an Australian farmer who said he'd land on the road and pick up hitch-hikers when he was flying between his farm and the city. So the landing part seems to work .


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## Bloggsworth (Mar 12, 2013)

Depends on the engine and, possibly, its age. Avgas still contains lead and unless the engine had the proper hardened valve seats the engine would begin to lose compression as the valve seats got damaged, it may be that modern aircraft piston engines have hardened valve seats, I'm not fully familiar with modern engines. From memory Avgas has a lower otane rating than modern car engines as aircraft engines tend to be lower stressed and run lower compression ratios in the interests of reliability, so octane rating is not a problem, but whether the additives allowed for unleaded petrol in older cars with soft valve seats are licensed for use in aircraft engines, I don't know. You could probably get away with it in an emergency for a short hop, but valve seat damage is not cheap to fix.
_

82UL is the specification for an unleaded fuel similar to automobile gasoline but without automotive additives. It could potentially be used in aircraft that have a Supplemental Type Certificate for the use of automobile gasoline with an aviation lean MON of 82 or greater or an antiknock index of 87 or greater._


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## Whisper (Mar 12, 2013)

Okay cool. I've picked the Cessna 206 which has a range of about 840 miles. My goal was to get a group of people close to their goal, but not the whole way via plane. The reason I'm giving is that it doesn't have the range and being as this is an Apoc world, no ready plane fuel. Therefore, the pilot can only take them about 400 miles so that he has the gas to get back home.

If it could pull gas out of a car and fill up, that wouldn't work. It looks like I can get away with getting them only 400 miles without having engine problems.


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## archer88iv (Mar 12, 2013)

You sure avgas contains lead? I remember reading that the B-36 Peacemaker lost like a thousand SHP per engine when they switched to unleaded. Maybe they just changed fuel for that one plane, though. I'm clueless.

Actually, for real, I wanna know how that works now.


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## Angelwing (Mar 13, 2013)

Cessnas come to mind for small civilian passenger planes. Not sure exactly what models though. 

As for the landing, it would most definitely be possible for them to land on road, granted it's straight and no cars are in the way! After all, the military had contingencies during the Cold War for Air Force jets to take off and land on highways/roads if their airstrips were too damaged. 

Though, I doubt that an aircraft could healthfully take car gas. Maybe certain kinds, or planes with certain engines and fuel systems could. Crop dusters perhaps? I'm not sure.


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## archer88iv (Mar 13, 2013)

You know, my old man told me that's why Route 66 was made so thick. I actually called up the base historian at one of our local airbases, though, and he said that the idea of a Cold War era bomber taking off or landing on Route 66 was more than a little crazy and had never been discussed in an operational context.

I was disappointed, to say the least. In retrospect, though, the B-52 (along with a lot of other bombers from the period) has outrigger wheels on the ends of its wings that wouldn't be on the road surface if it were to attempt a landing on a road like that, so I can see that it was kind of a crazy idea.


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## Bloggsworth (Mar 13, 2013)

archer88iv said:


> You sure avgas contains lead?



You think I made it up? AOPA Online: Issues related to Lead in Avgas


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## Angelwing (Mar 13, 2013)

archer88iv said:


> You know, my old man told me that's why Route 66 was made so thick. I actually called up the base historian at one of our local airbases, though, and he said that the idea of a Cold War era bomber taking off or landing on Route 66 was more than a little crazy and had never been discussed in an operational context.
> 
> I was disappointed, to say the least. In retrospect, though, the B-52 (along with a lot of other bombers from the period) has outrigger wheels on the ends of its wings that wouldn't be on the road surface if it were to attempt a landing on a road like that, so I can see that it was kind of a crazy idea.



That's why you have fighters like F-16s and F-15s, and planes like the F-111 Aardvark use them...


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## Robert_S (Mar 13, 2013)

Don't take offense, but as I was reading the OP, my mind went to "1941" with Belushi landing at a gas station and telling the attendant "Fill 'er up! Ethal."


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## GingerMI (Mar 15, 2013)

Whisper, my husband is a small aircraft mechanic who works on a fleet of private jets. I posed your original scenario to him and he said it's possible. Maybe you have all the info you need now, but let me know if you have any other questions.


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## Bloggsworth (Mar 15, 2013)

GingerMI said:


> Whisper, my husband is a small aircraft mechanic who works on a fleet of private jets. I posed your original scenario to him and he said it's possible. Maybe you have all the info you need now, but let me know if you have any other questions.



Petrol in a jet engine - Not while I'm within 1/2 mile...


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## Whisper (Mar 15, 2013)

GingerMI said:


> Whisper, my husband is a small aircraft mechanic who works on a fleet of private jets. I posed your original scenario to him and he said it's possible. Maybe you have all the info you need now, but let me know if you have any other questions.



Yep, I got it all.
Thanks.

Although I might revisit this question later.


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## movieman (Mar 18, 2013)

Angelwing said:


> That's why you have fighters like F-16s and F-15s, and planes like the F-111 Aardvark use them...



Yeah, somewhere on Youtube there's a video of a Jaguar fighter-bomber landing and taking off from a highway. A lot of European military jets were designed to operate from improvised runways on the assumption that their airfields would be destroyed early in WWIII.


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## Angelwing (Mar 18, 2013)

movieman said:


> Yeah, somewhere on Youtube there's a video of a Jaguar fighter-bomber landing and taking off from a highway. A lot of European military jets were designed to operate from improvised runways on the assumption that their airfields would be destroyed early in WWIII.



Ah cool, I'll have to check that out. I just remember reading about this sort of thing in a little informational pamphlet thing about one of the fighters. It came with a bunch of others on all sorts of military aircraft...maybe I'll be able to find them sometime.


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## archer88iv (Mar 21, 2013)

Bloggsworth said:


> You think I made it up? AOPA Online: Issues related to Lead in Avgas



No, just wanted to know for sure. Cool it, brother.


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## archer88iv (Mar 21, 2013)

Angelwing said:


> That's why you have fighters like F-16s and F-15s, and planes like the F-111 Aardvark use them...



Haha. My dad was a kid back in the 50s, so that was a little before their time.


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## DPVP (Mar 21, 2013)

i think your problem will be that most engians are designed to use 100 octane fuel. even with motorcycles i have had problems when i had nothing but low octane fule, and i was not in the air:grey:. now what i do know is that some aircraft engians made my lycoming and Rotax can deal with autogas.


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