I love flying the PA28(Cherokee) but am can never fully relax as I worry about forgetting to switch tanks, which if you check the NTSB website for example
www.ntsb.gov , You will find is a very common accident for this type.
Which leads me to my question. Having flown a PA34(Seneca 1) for the first time recently, I was very suprised that it did not have switchable tanks. I wondered why then, is there a *potentially* very error prone switchable valve on the Smaller Piper. Other light aircraft I have flown, like the Cessna 152 and 172 have a valve that slects from both tanks except in an emergency situation you can manually select a tank.
Having had limited studies outside of flying in Human Behaviour and JIT, I was always told that if it was possible for a human to make an error they would and that the aim in manufacturing was to make it error proof, and I am suprised this principal has not been carried over to all aspects of airplane desgin. Or am I missing something?