C177 pilot on pipeline patrol reported running out of fuel and landing on a gravel road.

Attributes
ACN	1430933
Time
Date	201703
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZZZ.Airport
State Reference	US
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Cardinal 177/177RG
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 91
Flight Phase	Cruise
Route In Use	Direct
Flight Plan	None
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Single Pilot
Qualification	Flight Crew Multiengine Flight Crew Commercial Flight Crew Instrument
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 300 Flight Crew Total 840 Flight Crew Type 400
Events
Anomaly	Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue

Narrative:

Was finished doing a pipeline patrol and was [flying] home. Stopped for fuel where AFD said the airport was staffed until xa:00. However; there was no one to operate fuel truck and no self-serve. I thought I had enough fuel to fly for another hour so I chose to continue on and stop at the next larger airport. I made it to about 15 miles from ZZZ and my engine started to sputter and eventually quit. I was able to safely land the airplane on a gravel road without incident. I believe that my fuel consumption was much higher than expected because I did not lean it enough. It was an airplane I had not flown in a while and seemed to be at the proper mixture setting but was consuming at least an extra 1.5 gallons an hour. According to my tach time the engine had been running for 4.2 hours when it quit. My expected fuel burn was 9.5/gals an hour. I had 49 usable gallon tanks that I had filled.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: C177 pilot on pipeline patrol reported running out of fuel and landing on a gravel road.

Narrative: Was finished doing a pipeline patrol and was [flying] home. Stopped for fuel where AFD said the airport was staffed until XA:00. However; there was no one to operate fuel truck and no self-serve. I thought I had enough fuel to fly for another hour so I chose to continue on and stop at the next larger airport. I made it to about 15 miles from ZZZ and my engine started to sputter and eventually quit. I was able to safely land the airplane on a gravel road without incident. I believe that my fuel consumption was much higher than expected because I did not lean it enough. It was an airplane I had not flown in a while and seemed to be at the proper mixture setting but was consuming at least an extra 1.5 gallons an hour. According to my Tach time the engine had been running for 4.2 hours when it quit. My expected fuel burn was 9.5/gals an hour. I had 49 usable gallon tanks that I had filled.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site 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.