Narrative:

The mission; ferry a stearman. The owner did an air show at an AFB; and after the show he flew the plane for me to pick up. He was in a hurry to fly out commercially; we both are professional pilots. Due to time zones we did not do a proper brief! When I came in to get the plane the owner had already departed so we did not discuss the fuel situation. After looking into the tank; I had no way of knowing/seeing; that I had a 35 minute air bubble in the top of the tank. I took off and in route I began to wonder if I had a full tank? I was asking myself if the owner had refueled or not? When I came over the ridgeline it became obvious that I was low on fuel and I tuned up AWOS and found out they where closed! I had to make a decision push it to the next airport or land with power; on a closed airport and not dead sticking into a family's home! I looked at the grass; taxiway; ramp. I looked for the workers and they were on the opposite end of the runway; and I said slow down land on a runway under control just after the 'X' because they are held down by sand bags. The owner and I have talked several times since! We are using our airline background and training. We are now leaving a hand written note on the status of the stearman as well as trying to call each other. I have been a professional pilot for 29 years this was a bad situation! I spoke to my young son just starting out and I said sometimes in life you have to make hard decisions and just take the hard knocks. Bottom-line no person or property was damaged! Just my pride!

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Pilot departs in Stearman with unknown quantity of fuel onboard after a visual check appeared to indicate the tank was full. Enroute the reporter questions the fuel situation and elects to land at a closed airport.

Narrative: The mission; ferry a Stearman. The owner did an air show at an AFB; and after the show he flew the plane for me to pick up. He was in a hurry to fly out commercially; we both are professional pilots. Due to time zones we did not do a proper brief! When I came in to get the plane the owner had already departed so we did not discuss the fuel situation. After looking into the tank; I had no way of knowing/seeing; that I had a 35 minute air bubble in the top of the tank. I took off and in route I began to wonder if I had a full tank? I was asking myself if the owner had refueled or not? When I came over the ridgeline it became obvious that I was low on fuel and I tuned up AWOS and found out they where closed! I had to make a decision push it to the next airport or land with power; on a closed airport and not dead sticking into a family's home! I looked at the grass; taxiway; ramp. I looked for the workers and they were on the opposite end of the runway; and I said slow down land on a runway under control just after the 'X' because they are held down by sand bags. The owner and I have talked several times since! We are using our airline background and training. We are now leaving a hand written note on the status of the Stearman as well as trying to call each other. I have been a professional pilot for 29 years this was a bad situation! I spoke to my young son just starting out and I said sometimes in life you have to make hard decisions and just take the hard knocks. Bottom-line no person or property was damaged! Just my pride!

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.