Thanks, Rob, for posting the results. The ones that said "top it" didn't abide by the spirit of the question :-) in that I don't know how many minutes of fuel that equates to, but there were enough replies in minutes. The technician in me couldn't resist doing some math:
The average planned fuel remaining was 63 minutes, or about 30 minutes in each tank. I guess that would work, but for me that would be about 7 gallons in each tank, at my low fuel warning setting. I know I would get an additional verbal warning from my usual right seat crewmember :-(.
The standard deviation of the answers was 33 minutes, a fairly large variation considering the average was 63 minutes. A significant number of people would have in the vicinity of 30 minutes remaining. In fact, 4 out of 12 would have 30 minutes or less. One planned the flight with only 20 minutes remaining.
Of course, if I knew the minutes remaining of the ones that said "top it" the results would shift dramatically.
Gary
Thanks to those that responded to the fuel question. This is how it was
worded:
There is 30min of fuel in your plane.
You wanta meet your friends for lunch on this stunning VFR day.
You don't have any planned flights for the next few weeks.
The lunch stop's gas is the same price as as at your home field.
The lunch stop's runway is 5,000 at sea level.
The flight time to lunch is 30mins
How many mins of fuel do you add to your tanks for the flight?
Here is the summery in the form of:
in the plane + personal min + trip + extra
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + top
30 + 30 + top
30 + 15 + full wings, not aux
30 + 30 + 60 + 60
30 + 120
30 + 120
30 + 120
30 + 120
30 + 30 + 30 + 30
30 + 30 + 60
30 + 30 + 30 + 15
30 + 15 + 30 + 15
30 + 15 + 30 + 5
30 + 0 + 60
30 + 60
common notes:
1) always top
2) add enough to get to lunch and home plus personal reserve
3) fill to a level one can directly observe fuel in tank.
Rob