Not sure I would care for it were I the pilot. Minds wiser than mine would know.

So, no, it’s not a good thing at all.

I actually had a more intimate experience with this recently than I would have thought. Last Sunday I took the pickup (diesel) out for to return a few tools to a neighbor and grab some corn for the birds. All was well as the temps were in the upper teens, when they dropped into the single digits I suddenly found the pickup stalling, no throttle response, in short if I was lucky it might remain idling. Classic case of a clogged fuel filter in a diesel, or of diesel fuel gelling up. So we limp into ny neighbor’s heated machine shed, on Monday I purchase filters and fill a can with 5 gallons of #1 diesel, and proceed to remove and examine the old filter. It was clogged all right. Not with gelled fuel and water, but with algae.

Then I remembered, I don’t drive the pickup often and had last filled the tanks in September. The new low-sulpher diesel does not prevent moisture buildup and algae as well as the older stuff did. The fuel sat stagnant in high heat days and cool nights for weeks, allowing algae to bloom. When I started it next, that pond scum in my tanks clogged the filters and the motor starved for fuel.

Which, on a 5-degree evening in the middle of nowhere is still a lot better than at 1500 feet above terra firma in an aircraft that, of course, needs continuous power to remain airborne. The former makes you cold. The latter makes you dead.

– Max

So much for hoping nobody notices you getting home a little late.