is this on topic? aviation.stackexchange.com/q/57945/1467

imho, no

It's also a pretty ill-defined question. Nobody can tell you what you should care about. It's up to you what to care about.

So I'll probably post this as a full-fledged question later.

But: in a Cessna 172 or something, why would we ever want to turn the fuel pump off (except after the end of a flight)? Why not just leave it on all the time?

if it's like the Piper Warrior, it has a mechanical fuel pump, so having the electrical one too is just running the battery down

you do your power checks with the electrical pump off, because you want to know that the mechanical one is working correctly

I'm looking in the C172 POH. It does have both an engine-driven fuel pump and an electrical fuel pump.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the handbook saying "don't leave the electric pump on while you're flying".

I bet it doesn't say "don't leave the landing light on the whole time" either but I still wouldn't do it

If it's a wet rental, I'll leave everything I want turned on. :D

have fun trying to start the engine with a flat battery :-p

I gave up hand-swinging when I stopped flying Tiger Moths

During flight, isn't the battery supposed to stay charged anyway?

the alternator should keep it topped up, but it can only supply so much power

Makes sense.

Whenever I do a wet rental, I just leave the throttle fully open all the time and control my vertical speed using slips. :D

(no, not really)

I guess it makes your fuel planning simpler if you just expect the max burn continuously

"Mixture control? I thought that was for the in-flight cocktails!"

You don't need to touch the mixture knob if you always fly below 3,000 MSL. :D

You don't need to, but to get the manufacturer's stated fuel burn rate you do.

Oh right.

So, AirNav has information about airports in the United States (and probably the rest of the world), including lists of runways and the type of surface, along with an estimate of the condition of the surface. Such as...

"asphalt, in poor condition"

"grass, in good condition"

I looked up a seaplane port in AirNav once, and it gave me a good laugh, because it listed a runway which was described as:

"water, in excellent condition"