Sorry Dublinpilot I didn’t mean that the way it looked! I meant ‘airfield practice’, could be anywhere!
In 2018, flew from Denham to Old Sarum in a PA28 and realised on pre-flight takeoff check that the RHS fuel cap was missing. Tried to find a replacement cap at Old Sarum (and also looked to see if it had come off on landing) but no success and best we could come up with was duct tape. It worked for the flight back. In the mean time, the fuel cap was found on the runway at EGLD. Likely wasn’t tightened enough. S**t happens.
I’ve learned to put the fuel cap onto the seat. No way you’re missing to put it back on.
Inkognito wrote:
I’ve learned to put the fuel cap onto the seat. No way you’re missing to put it back on.
There is a danger that it gets accidently knocked off the seat. Now you don’t have it on the fuel tanks and you don’t have it on the seat, and it might even get caught up in the rudder pedals.
Personally, I only remove them at the moment that I’m about to refuel the tank and immediately replace them. If I have to walk away for anything (eg just to grab the fuel tester or dip stick) I replace the cover. It quickly becomes a habit and isn’t a chore anymore. That way, I’m never away from the tank without the fuel cap on. I also insist I’m the last person to touch it before departure. So even if the refueler closes them, I open them and close them myself.
A bit OCD perhaps, but maybe a bit of OCD makes it less of an inconvenience!
I’ve never understood why some (majority of?) aircrafts don’t have fuel caps attached with wire.
I’ve never understood why some (majority of?) aircrafts don’t have fuel caps attached with wire.
Same here.
when I started reading this threat I immediately thought ´ha, this is the advantage that finally clinches the debate, low wing must be better!’ 
. But apparently not.
Wired up fuel caps might stop the loss of the fuel cap but doesn’t make them secured properly.
They just keep bashing against the wing or the fuelsage.
Aveling wrote:
Maybe the local culture is that they are left like that so that the pilot can close them!!!
Maybe not a cultural thing, but SOP? I am frequently flying to a couple of airfields where you are not allowed to refuel yourself and SOP is to put the fuel cap besides the filler neck, so the pilot is forced to close on preflight inspection.
Btw, I do keep my old caps in the aircraft just in case iff …
Those of us who fly in the US will have become accustomed to FBO’s who ‘top off’ the tanks while you are away with business or whatever. This is especially wonderful with the Cessna (I avoid ‘self service’ like the plague re stepladders, happy to pay a couple of bucks extra), etc.. Never once in more than a thousand hours have I had a fuel cap left off or not tightened, but despite that, I always climb on the fuelage step and check anyway. With the Warrior in Europe I invariably have to grapple with hoses etc myself while the ‘refuellers’ sit in their hut and watch and so I always replace the caps myself. I just don’t (or didn’t, I do now) have the programming to check the caps in the unlikely event of someone else refuelling for me!
