The shortest flight I've ever logged

[cjsmith]

Preflighted the aircraft, awkward with my flashlight in the deepening gloom. It was a bit low on gas -- that was a bummer, because the fuel truck guys had already gone home, so we'd have to taxi over to the self-serve island and wrestle with the hose. Waited for my flight instructor to get there; he'd said he'd sign me off, but as my paperwork was not signed YET, I knew I shouldn't start it without him.

In due course we got in and fired it up and listened to the ATIS. I was the first to hear the fateful words. "Attention all aircraft: both fuel trucks and the fuel island are out of service." On the second run-through Benjamin heard it too, and he swatted the avionics master and pulled the mixture.

Despite his speed the Hobbs meter had juuuuuuuuuust begun to tick over to the next digit. I owe for 0.1 hour on that plane. We logged it, of course. Night flying time. :-)

As I was securing the aircraft Benjamin pulled out his handheld radio and asked ground control what was up with the fuel. The controller said the place was quite simply out of gas -- a scheduled delivery hadn't come. We wondered what the airport was going to make of that in the next couple of days. (Oddly enough, the ATIS recorded the following hour didn't have the note about the fuel.)

Then we went into the club and he signed my paperwork.

Comments

[rfrench.livejournal.com]

I think it's the place at a gas station for the large trucks to fuel up.