A hint I was given when I was training was to always fly with full tanks
Great if you only want to fly a couple of people round the local area but you will be a bit overweight if you want to go somewhere with 4 up and bags!
From my memory of the Pa28 there are 3 positions where you get a pretty accurate visual fuel indication, Full, Tabs, fuel to the bottom of the
outboard of the tank (can't remember the amount but it is still a fair bit due to the dihedral) and of course you also can tell if its empty when the donk stops - but I don't think you can actually see when its empty due to the dihedral. If I remember rightly fuel to bottom of the outboard of the tank would give enough for about an hour if it was a nice day and you did not need full reserve capability, also of course, if it was at this level you could then work out how much to put in for what you wanted to fly (though this would probably put you up to 'tabs' anyway).
