Cardinal 177/177RG
Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Commercial; Flight Crew Instrument
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 300; Flight Crew Total 840; Flight Crew Type 400
Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Landed in Emergency Condition
Aircraft; Human Factors
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.
C177 pilot on pipeline patrol reported running out of fuel and landing on a gravel road.