Building tips and hints

[Dave S]

Other threads have covered fuel system testing, etc.; however, while building I wanted to get some idea how much fuel had to be in the wing tanks to supply the header tank with a measured amount of nose down.

Our front driveway is brick cobbles so it was a simple matter to pull some bricks, dig a hole for the nose gear, measure the deck angle then fill/drain/measure the tanks.

The attached photo is with a 10 degree nose down which resulted in a minimum of 6 gallons on each side for the fuel to be available to the header (That's on this particular series 7 trigear - sure it is different for other builds and models). In reality nobody is likely to hold that position in flight long enough to exhaust the header - but I wanted to have some facts to deal with. Found out it was basically proportional as the deck angle is reduced (3 gallons on each side at 5 degrees - perfectly level the unusable fuel in the wing tanks was less than a quart.

Sidebar suggestion - if you do this in town - probably a good idea to let the neighbors know first so it reduces the number of uninformed earthlings who might call up the local constable about the "small plane crash in someone's driveway" - don't ask me how I know this........

Dave S
KF7 Trigear
912ULS - Warp