[mhcasey]

This is my screw up tale of the day:

While preflighting the C152, my student and I await the fuel truck to top of the tanks - He might be soloing, so I want to make sure we have plenty of fuel should we get there. The truck, per the usual at KAUS, takes forever. I ask the student to use the dipstick to check the fuel levels. He checks both tanks and finds about 9 gallons in one tank and 7 in the other. OK - 16g - a solid 2.5, maybe 3 hours worth of fuel should be plenty. We'll fill up elsewhere if we really need to. I cancel the fuel order and we're off.

The winds and turbulence today were downright nasty and my student struggled in the pattern a bit. Being a pretty determined individual, he wanted to go until he got it right. We stayed in the pattern for a while and both decided it was not a great day to solo, but he wanted to work on ground reference maneuvers as well. I checked the hobbs times and the fuel gauges still looked good, but I told him he'd better get it right the first time because we needed to get back for more fuel. Fortunately, he did a great job and we headed back to KAUS.

But alas, on the initial call up, "N12345, maintain clear of class C." This is not exactly what I want to hear, and while I feel confident that we still have plenty in the tanks, I know the "30 minute reserve" is just around the corner. I wait around for about 10 minutes flying circles waiting for a clearance and finally tell approach that he needs to either let us in or we need to go fuel up. He tells us to head straight for the field.

The rest of the flight was uneventful. I signed his logbook, we talked about the flight (I actually emphasized fuel management and discussed my actions with ATC), and then I was out of there.

I got home tonight to an e-mail that read, "Today I preflighted 67796, and the right fuel cap was off, and less than 5 gallons of fuel was in the plane." Now 5g in a C-152 is almost an hour of endurance (it is an hour if you run the rpm low and lean it out), but I have to say the e-mail shook me up a bit. I'd love to give my student the benefit of the doubt, but I suspect that he didn't secure the cap after we checked the fuel levels. Normally if nothing else I will always check the oil level and fuel caps/quantity before entering an airplane. On this occasion I neglected that duty as PIC and assumed that my student would properly secure the caps.

They always say it's the third or fourth mistake that kills you. I'm just glad we weren't out practicing spins and I spoke up to ATC when I did. This was a wake up call.

I think it would be great if you guys can share similar stories of the time you "got away with one." It would definitely make me feel like less of an idiot and hopefully ensure that none of us make similar mistakes in the future.