The header tank was conceived to help protect against inadvertent, short
term un-porting of fuel and not as an auxiliary fuel tank. I wanted it to
be as simple as I could make it and as close to the standard Lancair system as
possible. I have a lot of faith in Lancair.
I believe you are correct. If I fly around for 6 minutes or so while
header tank runs dry, air will enter the FCU and I’ll undoubtedly be
making an emergency landing. But on the bright side, if I’m able to
fly around all that time and my fuel pickup can’t find any fuel during
that entire time, I doubt that I’ll have to worry about landing with fuel
in my belly tank.
The fuel system you are describing actually does exist and it’s
currently flying on at least one IVPT with several others flying soon. It’s
produced as a kit by Diemech Turbine Solution Group (the same people who supply
engines) and it’s been engineered by Chris Skoppe. It incorporates
a low flow, low pressure, fuel pump that transfers fuel out of the belly and
into the left wing. Among other things, the kit has a small, stainless
steel, header tank, mounted on the fire wall with an integrated fuel filter.
My standard parts came from Lancair of course but many others were purchased
from Chris. I found he’s always willing to help. The system
can bee seen on their web site.
www.diemechturbinesolution.com
Joe
-----Original Message-----
From: Lancair Mailing
List [mailto:lml@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Bill McDonald
Sent: Wednesday, May
09, 2007 11:34 AM
To: lml@lancaironline.net
Subject: [LML] Joe T's fuel system
Thinking more about Joe T's fuel system.
Excellent way to purge air out of the system. BUT, it is
a pretty long pipe run from the aft baggage to the engine.
How do you get rid of that air? In other words, if the
header ever gets empty for any reason, air purges great up to the header.
Then you have a 7 or 8 ft run of pipe to the engine.
How do you purge that air?
The air will have to go through the engine, and you
will get a non start or a very delayed start. Probably delayed enough
that the wheels will already be decending in rotations
as the batteries will start to pull down. Then you have inertia against you
instead of with you and that is a good way to get a
hot start.
Ok, good fuel system if the small header was moved as
close to the engine as possible,
like on the firewall or attached to the engine mount
in the FCU area.
Keeping it aft, without a way to purge air from the
header to the engine sounds like BIG trouble to me.