Left Tank Flapper

Last night I had the chance to get into the sweat lodge garage and get some work done.  I didn’t want to stay out there too long, so I just completed the flapper that I started before I left for Oshkosh.  If you have exceedingly good memory, or you are so bored you have re-read earlier posts, the flapper is placed on the large hole on the most inside internal rib in the fuel tank.  The job of the flapper is to slow down the movement of fuel going from the first internal tank bay to the tip of the wing in a hard bank.   We’re talking aerobatics or just a very long 60-deg bank turning around a point.  If you are on the left tank, for instance, and you are performing a left bank the fuel will tend to want to move toward the tip of the wing during the bank.  Eventually the engine will be starved for fuel and will quit on you.  The flapper slows that fuel migration down quite a bit and gives you extra time.  Of course, as the name implies, the flapper allows fuel to flow unimpeded from the 2nd chamber to the 1st.

Closed position

Flapper for the 1st internal rib.

Sitting in the tank

My goal for the rest of the weekend is to try to get the rest of the ribs into the fuel tank and get them sealed in.  I think that’ll be enough for the next two days.