Long range capabilities of 337 and modifications

[Roger]

Holy crap. What a waste of money and effort.

[WebMaster]

Your best shot is internal, inside the cabin, Ferry Tanks.
These are custom made, will require some plumbing and pumps, to get the fuel to your wing tanks.
Owen adds internal to the wing tanks outboard of the current tanks. These are small tanks, several of them, in each wing. With each tank there is a fill port, and a fuel drain, both of which add to the drag on the airframe. Then there are the wing extension tanks. These are ever further outboard of the wing end. Finally, there are the under the wing tanks, attached with hard points under the wing. All of these tanks require additional plumbing, and pumps to work.

The deal about all of those is that they are expensive, they are modifications to the airframe, that place additional loads on the wing, in an area that is not necessarily designed to take those loads. In addition, when you are all done, they are there forever.

If you get an internal ferry tank, you can take it out when you reach your destination. You can take off at 30% over gross weight, and not affect the drag that is on the airframe.

I remember listening to someone talk at the last Bahamas fly-in about flying from St. Johns to the Azores. It was the shortest route to go to Africa. There was a temporary installation of a HF radio, mounting it up in the cabin overhead. The route is direct, over well traveled shipping lanes, and avoided all the potential for icing that can be found on the northern route.

In the fuselage tanks were used by the AF to ferry 0-2's to Viet Nam.
I would suggest talking to Don Nieser about installing a fuselage tank. I think for long distance, this is your best bet.

[hharney]

Visited a booth at Sun N Fun but can't remember the name of the company. I will keep looking but here is one that I found.

http://www.turtlepac.com/products/bu...l-bladder.html

[stratobee]

Thanks for the info.

A ferry tank is both cheaper and easier when you ferry to Europe. However, if the aircraft ever has to go back, it needs a whole slew of approvals from various dignitaries and national air authorities. This is Europe after all. Last I heard a ferry tank would need a £6000 approval or temporary type certificate from the UK's CAA... That's why the built in option is desirable - they can't mess with that if it has a US STC.

The nature of my job is that I might spend 6 months in the US, then 6 months in Europe. That's an awful long time to be away from an aircraft you own. And owning two aircrafts, two insurances? I'm afraid I'm not that rich.

But who said aircraft ownership should be easy?

[rhurt]

Another option is to put a tank in a cargo pod. The pod would proably cost about 2 mph at 125kt.

[Dave Underwood]

My two pennies worth are as follows:

1) You have 128 gals in the aircraft which at 145 kts and 20 gals/hr gives you 6.4 hr range or a safe range of circa 600 nm, ultimate range being just over 900 nm.

2) Take either the the far north route and you have more than enough range on each leg, or take the southerly route via BGBW (Narsarsuaq) east bound with tail winds and your longest leg is 670 nm.

3) You may well want to take the northern route west bound with the head winds and lower ground speed, with the leg lengths circa 400 nm. Great scenery as well either route.

4) You just can't really do either crossing from November through March though there are lots who do. Icing and very poor weather and serious head winds.

5) On the southerly route via BGBW, unless you can fly at 25 k, you will need an HF radio.

6) The above options do not require any aircraft mods, though if you could get the extra 20 gals, you increase your safety margins and comfort factors.

7) There a several folks around who will put a tank of reasonable size in the back and plumb it into the fuel return lines. You then face all the paperwork challenges every time you want to do a crossing and have the tank refitted.

8) A better thought might be to put in a smaller tank on a Form 337 and leave it in place for Northern routes. That would be my choice.

9) The 30% extra fuel requirement on any crossing means on the St. John to Portual route you would need about an extra 150 to 170 gals or close to 300 gals. You may have to do work to strengthen the floor to carry the extra loads.

10) I think if you talk to any of the ferry pilots who do the trip regularily, the answer would be to make it simple and go one of the northern routes.

D

[stratobee]

Thanks for your responses.