I have the best one running out of gas when you are riding or driving is one thing at least your feet are on the ground. I ran out of gas in the air.
When I lived in Colo Springs I worked at the FBO at the airport fueling jets and there was a flight school in our building and I decided to learn how to fly.
I was pretty far into my training and was doing my solo cross countries and I was scheduled to do my longest solo cross country on Sat. and I just happen to have to work on Wed. to cover for a guy who could not make it in and got off around 1:00 in the afternoon I saw my flight instructor and he talked me into going up and praticing short take off and landings and soft field landings (God's intervention).
I take off Sat. and fly out to Arapahoe on CO\KS border very boring and uneventful trip out. I land get my log book signed and file my return flight plan and head back out to the field. During my pre-flight I check the gas and I see I burned only a 1/4 of tank on both tanks and figure I have plenty to get back. (Major mistake) Rule # 1 Always top off.
I take off and now I'm heading back west and for every inch you go forward the ground is always getting closer so basically you are always climbing to maintain altitude. I was flying a Cessna 150 and hit a temperature inversion which made holding my altitude even more difficult.
About half way back I decided I’m not going to make it on the fuel I have remaining and I would not make it back to Arapahoe if I turned around. I check my charts and I see (SKY RANCH) about 25 miles to the northwest. I call Denver air control declare an in-flight emergence and divert to Sky Ranch, by now I’m down to a 1/8 of tank on both tanks. I raise the place on my radio but they do not have radar and can not give me a vector, so Colo Springs air control gets involved and have me on radar and they give me the vector. Which I had figured right on from my compass and my charts. I finally see the field when the right tank goes dry and what do I see a dirt field runway. Now two days ago I practiced landing on dirt field, but you do not actual land just practice the procedures (God’s Intervention).
I entered my down wind leg and I’m about 25’ off the tops of the trees and make my final turn to line up with the strip right then and there the engine sputters re-fires and sputters again then quits. Now not only I’m I making my first soft field landing I’m now flying a dead stick to boot. The whole idea on a soft field landing is keep the nose up off the ground until you lose all your lift and it just falls out of the sky hopefully by then your two main wheels have been on the ground for awhile and you’re on the brakes with full flaps to slow you down. The fact that I’m writing this tells you I made it actual my landing was perfect, a little bumpy but any landing you walk away from is a good one.
By now the flight school and the entire FBO have been listening to the whole ordeal through our in-flight radio and everyone knows about it. My instruct is on the phone with the owner of the place and soon as I could stop shaking long enough he tells me I have to fly the damm thing out of there. Something about being in your twenties and having survived my tour in NAM this would be a piece of cake. Well I did it landed in Colo Springs and tied the plane down completed my paper work answered a million questions from the FAA went home and have never got back into one of those tin cans ever again. If God wanted me to fly he would have given me wings.
