c-hunt@tesla.UUCP (Charles Hunt) (10/15/84)
Several years back, a member of the flying club I was in was out west of
Salt Lake City returning to base (SLC). The plane was our club's Piper
Cherokee 140 which normally should stop for lunch at Elko when taking the
Tahoe to Salt Lake run; but this member was "in a hurry" and figured he
was safe within the FAA required minimums of fuel, so...
Our hero got the Heavy Headwind in Lookout Pass, very typical when traversing
the Ruby Mountains, and the faithful 140 sputtered and coughed as the fuel
ran out just 40 miles west of SLC near the town of Tooele. As some of you may
know, there's a LONG, straight stretch of boring freeway through the salt flats
at that place, so our club member eased six-zero-whisky down for an unscheduled
landing smack dab in the middle of the empty eastbound half of I-80. After
dragging the craft onto the salty shoulder, he hitched a ride to Salt Lake
International, got two 5 gallon gerrycans of avgas, hitched back to the plane,
gassed her up, took off right on the interstate, and returned to SLC.
EPILOGUE: Besides finding a State Trooper's traffic ticket for illegal parking
on an interstate stuck in the door, our friend got in trouble with the FAA for
various sins, got the royal boot out of our club, and caused us to change our
club rule to require twice the FAA stated minimum of fuel for all our planes to
avoid future below bingo experiences.
=Charles Hunt= {...!tesla!c-hunt}