Jeff wrote:
"As Victor points out with the Cessna twin tip tanks, they may look cool, but they come at a pretty high cost to safety. Carrying tip tanks gives you the capability whether by accident or by mechanical failure to have the lateral balance so far out that the plane becomes uncontrollable at slow speed. Why create a safety problem when the same volume of fuel can be safely carried either in the wing stub, or the inboard section of the outer wing panel? Part of the flight testing on my KR included slow flight and landings with one wing tank full and the other empty. I designed the tank loads specifically to ensure the plane was always controllable regardless of the fuel load and configuration. Even with my wing tanks located at the inboard end of the wing panels, it doesn't take but a few gallons of imbalance for the plane to start to fly wing heavy towards the fuller side. " I agree, if that is your only fuel source, but if it's used as additional fuel source for long range flights, and the fuel is transferred to your main tanks, or burned directly. Also, so they drain simultaneously, you can run both tanks to a single pump to be used directly by the engine or to transfer to the main tanks. Most likely it would be easier to just burn the fuel directly. Lastly, I haven't read any accounts of the Pazmany aircraft who use only wing tanks of having the same issue as the twins? Not to mention that we are talking about roughly only 60 pounds of fuel in each tank, though on a KR that might seem like a lot. Fred Johnson Reno, NV
