Sid Wood wrote: > Were I to do it again, I would move the rear wall of the tank > about six inches forward to reduce each tank volume by about 3 gallons for > 7.6 each side. Fuel capacity can help or hurt depending on your mission.
Don't dispare, Sid. I originally built a large header tank, and then worried that all that weight would eat into my gross weight and cut into my passenger/baggage weight, so I eliminated the header tank which just left an 8 gallon tank in each wing. That isn't enough! But that was before I knew that gross weight is set by the builder (mine is 1200 pounds) and the stock properly built KR with a big engine can handle that. So now I've added another 8 gallon tank for a total of 24, and that lets me do things like flly to my father's place, land for lunch, and fly back, without the hassle (and danger) of driving to the gas station with a potentially dirty old gas can to buy who-knows-what octane gas from the country store, and then "test" it on climbout from a grass strip surrounded by trees. And that extra capacity lets me fly home from OSH or somewhere at high altitude without burning up time and fuel while climbing back after a mid-journey fuel stop. Just because you've got a lot of fuel tank volume doesn't mean you have to keep those tanks filled all the time. I don't. I keep the outboard tank empty unless I know I'm going to need it. But when you need it for the "right mission", you've got it... Mark Langford n5...@hiwaay.net website www.n56ml.com
