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I fly very regular (200+ hrs yr.) with my Mooney M20F which has 64 gal
usable.  At 10 gals an hour, or even 8.5 - 9 per hr at 12,000 ft my flight
time can easily run 5.5 to 6 hours.  Although not desirable to go legs this
long I occasionally do fly them.  A couple of years ago on a trip from
northern MI to Tampa Bay we had flight planned a stop in Knoxville.  It was
December and we were above a nasty system that extended quicker into our
destination than flight service had forecast.  UPS 747's going into
Louisville were complaining about ice and Knoxville wasn't looking a lot
better.  With the extra fuel we just extended our destination to Athens GA
were they had  clear skies.  Needless to say the extra fuel played a major
factor in our ability to deal with an unexpected situation with a very
pleasant outcome.
  When at the factory last winter on the builders assistance program, I
elected to leave WITHOUT closing my wings so I could add 20 more gallons.
This decision cost me a lot of labor as I had to come home and build tables,
jigs, modify and seal additional tank area, and then actually close both
wings in my shop.  Hope this validates the importance I placed on fuel
range.
  Your decision to add fuel capacity must be weighed with your expected use
of the plane.  But as my old flight instructor always told me,  you can
always leave the tanks down based on payload and trip length but it is
pretty hard to add range when the fuel tank capacity is already maxed.
  In the interest of space, feel free to email me direct as I could relate
a couple other situations where the Mooney's great fuel range have impacted
my decision for extended tanks on my Lancair IVP.

Tom Sullivan
The Yuper ( U.P. of MI)

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