REFLECTOR:Low fuel light

[Chuck Jensen]

SB

I doubt that's what Steve said.  I think he was reflecting on what we've
seen at big companies who, for liability reasons, refuse to admit they've
got a bum product, i.e. cigarette companies refusal to design a "safe"
cigarette.  For sake of discussion, it was a simply rhetorical query.

Now to the point, if the Velocity demo aircraft flies every day with exactly
the same schematic, why then are these anomalies and annoyances occurring.
Inquiring minds want to know.

Each individual has a data point or two, but no one really is in position to
pull all the data points together to make a graph.  I don't know that that's
necessarily the responsibility of Velocity, but I'm sure Velocity takes a
serious interest in it.

On a personal basis, I'm really fascinated with the sump vent thing.  I have
had no problems whatsoever with my sump or indication, however, there are at
least two data points that indicate no vent is required and, to my feeble
mind, this seems counter-intuitive to what I would expect.  I wonder, if air
gets in the sump, where is it supposed to go:

	1.	To the engine?  Let's hope not.
	2.	Into the tanks?  The only way this will happen is if the
diameter of the fuel line from the strake is sufficiently large that
capillary occlusion will be avoided and sufficiently large that the upward
pressure of the air is great enough to overcome the downward flow of the
fuel.  In a 1" line, no problem, 1/2" line probably no problem, 3/8" and
smaller, who knows.  Perhaps the few that do fly without a sump vent have
very straight/vertically aligned lines.  Clearly, if there was any apex/hump
in the line, where air could get trapped, the likelihood of fuel going down
and air up drops sharply.  Can we say air-locked.

At the risk of display my ample ignorance of the fuel vent system, it would
seem if both tanks and the sump all vented to a common manifold, then that
manifold is vented overboard, it seems to be near impossible to get an
imbalance between tanks or sump, since are all interconnected.  This is so
simple that is must have been done, or was tried and failed for (un)obvious
reasons.

So SB, no one is impugning Velocities interest in safety.  What is happening
is there is a knowledge vacuum that isn't being filled, either by us
experimenters or Velocity.  And, you know how nature abhors a vacuum.

Chuck

-----Original Message-----
From: reflector-admin@tvbf.org [mailto:reflector-admin@tvbf.org]On
Behalf Of Scott Baker
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 7:45 PM
To: reflector@tvbf.org
Subject: Re: REFLECTOR:Low fuel light


Huh?  Are you suggesting that Velocity is afraid to design a safe fuel
schematic??!
We fly with this same fuel schematic every day - trusting it with our lives
and the lives of people who are going on demonstration rides and the lives
of Velocity owners going through flight transition training.  How can you
say such a thing??  Dang Steve!  Think about what you just said.
SB


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "steve korney" <s_korney@hotmail.com>
To: <reflector@tvbf.org>
Sent: Saturday, July 26, 2003 4:53 PM
Subject: RE: REFLECTOR:Low fuel light


> Your right on Chuck...
>
> Why doesn't the factory re-design it to be a positive flow system and be
> done with it...
> Maybe there afraid the re-design may indicate that a problem existed in
the
> first place...
> Pilot error is un-controllable...But, fuel starvation due to poor design
can
> be fixed and should be...
>
>
> Best... Steve
>
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