On Sep 19, 6:00*pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
" wrote in news:7b0f558c-1f70-462f-
:



On Sep 19, 3:47*pm, Bertie the Bunyip wrote:

No, nothing to do with the sump drains themselves. The sump area is a
small depession at the bottom of the tank. All water in the tank should
go there by design. However most tanks have small imperfections in them
where water can get into and stick there. You do a nice calm walkaround
and drain your fuel and then when you start taxying, the water becomes
dislodged and gets into a feed port. With some designs, this can add up
to a lot of water...

Gotchya, gotchya and gotchya, never thought of what you say, and makes
perfect sense.

Tanks I have are "stainless steel" and not bladders, so I **think**I
have a lesser risk of water settling where it shouldn't be but like
you say, a good shake would be prudent to better assure the water
indeed does settle down to the sumps so it gets sumped out.

Depends on the type, but tin tanks are no kind of insurance against it. Try
it sometime. Drain some fuel, if there's some water, drain it all out and
then shake the airplane. Pretty sure you;ll get some more.

BTW, you're tanks are more than likely aluminum. I could be wrong, but I've
never seen stainless tanks in any airplane.

Bertie



Big design flaw on the early M20J (Mooney 201) was the fuel tanks were
wet wing, and the seam sealant failed. If one smells gas in flight it
is NOT good, and we did. Huge pain in the ass to reseal. The other
thing about those tanks is the fuel caps were a little tricky to put
back right (this was back in the old days when the fuel truck would
come to the airplane) and if they were not put on right rain got in
big time. Nothing like draining a tank in a rain storm while wearing a
suit!

It was a lot of years ago but I was at a meeting in Rochester NY, got
to the airplane late, heavy rain, and got lots of water in the fuel
because the fuel caps were not on right. I wrote a letter of complaint
to the FBO, they kept it in mind and the next I I stopped there they
fueled the airplane for free. I should have taken a rain check on the
free refueling!

BTW, preflight checks don't end when you start the engine. A couple of
times in my couple of thousand hours I was approaching rotation speed
and a last look at the panel showed something not quite right. You're
not committed to the flight until there is not enough runway left to
stop! I approach every takeoff with the expectation I'll have to about
it, and every landing with the expectation I'll have to go around.
That mind set makes it a LOT easier to make the safe decision when you
have to.

This advice is worth exactly what you paid for it!