You will probably find that items of mass in the cabin are required to be secured by an approved means, or phrased differently, whatever it is, your securing it must be approved. Seat belts are approved for people. The little white net that Cessna provides for the baggage compartment is approved for the weight limits for which the baggage compartment is approved. Otherwise, you’ll likely need an approval for anything else. That is not as easy as ratchet straps, and you’ll find that most GA aircraft lack enough hardpoint fittings to properly secure such a load anyway – they were never designed to do that. I have accomplished mods in the past to carry Turtle Pacs in various aircraft, they are an excellent product, when used, and secured as intended.
If you’re going to use the fuel in flight, the change required to the aircraft fuel system to receive the fuel in flight will certainly require approval. There are definitely some “do not do’s” with this, so home made solutions are unwise…
I think that the use of Turtle Packs are a bit DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL…..
I have heard from a friend of a friend that they work very well.
There is some reluctance to fill these tanks at the regular fuel stops on an Atlantic crossing, but its mostly a verbal thing (“that tank you have to fill yourself”). When the fueling starts, they do however fill the ferry tank to max too. I guess they have to say something for legal matters.
I have also heard that it works just fine to fill the same wing that your engine is feeding from, as long as you have a header tank downstream of where the Aux tank is connected. Otherwise you will end up with the problem of 1 full tank (refilled from Turtle), while the other wing tank is almost empty(since you feed from this tank while transferring from the other, and its not very fast)
Pilot_DAR wrote:
If you’re going to use the fuel in flight, the change required to the aircraft fuel system to receive the fuel in flight will certainly require approval. There are definitely some “do not do’s” with this, so home made solutions are unwise…
Officially approved solutions can be even unwiser because regulatory over-zealousness can create additional risks. A few weeks ago there was an incident of a piston PA46 flying around the world with an FAA approved cabin tank. As the extra fuel tank increased the endurance by x hours, the smart FAA also required an extension of the oil sump (oil sump is calculated as minimum level + endurance * max permissible oil consumption per Lycontosauraus manual, i.e. a ridiculously high number). This sump extension required plumbing and there a mistake was made, the connection broke and the engine spilled all its oil over board, leading to an emergency landing.
Had this been my home-brewn solution, I believe it would have been safer…
Pilot_DAR wrote:
You will probably find that items of mass in the cabin are required to be secured by an approved means, or phrased differently, whatever it is, your securing it must be approved. Seat belts are approved for people. The little white net that Cessna provides for the baggage compartment is approved for the weight limits for which the baggage compartment is approved. Otherwise, you’ll likely need an approval for anything else.
This is probably correct but to me this sounds like the government trying to regulate how I fold my toilet paper. I would have a very hard time respecting that rule to be honest…
As said by Bader, rules are for the guidance of wise men, and the obedience of……
600 pounds of fuel in a bladder tank in place of the bench seat in a 182 would create a 9G crash force of 5400 pounds. You’ll be hard pressed to sum up 5400 pounds of restraint hardpoint capacity in the back of a 182. It’s great that pilots are confident that they won’t need that 9G protection, because pilots don’t take off planning to have to survive a crash, but planes still crash, and those crash loads, or more are imposed on the airframe. I don’t fly with unrestrained loads in aircraft any more – happily, I can approve my own mods for restraint!
If you’re ferrying, there’s a better chance that you’re flying in places where aid is even more distant than usual. It is those flights in which I go to extra effort to comply with guidance material for safe operation – ‘cause if something goes wrong, I’ll be more alone for longer than usual, so I gotta survive. An extra reason to prevent injurious conditions in the aircraft.
There is good guidance material on plumbing ferry fuel systems, and they have been written on the back of hard learned lessons. Ditching your aircraft, with full ferry fuel you cannot use is bad news – but I’m aware of pilots who have done it.
As for engine oil, any engine good enough to fly the leg at all, will do it on internal oil. The guidance material tells you to consider the oil consumption, there is no requirement to modify the oil system for an engine in good condition. You’d (and perhaps the FAA) will be amazed how little oil an engine needs to keep running safely if managed with forethought.
Here is how I handled the use of the Turtle Pack on my Africa flight. I first tried to put it on a ferry permit, but that is quite hard to do under EASA rules, so I did not succeed. Then I talked to the insurance company and they insured the aircraft with the unapproved modification and confirmed this in writing. Their view was that it was a greater risk to fly in Africa without the Turtle Pack than with it, so they went along in a practical way.
I must say that this fuel solution was essential. I gave a slideshow presentatation of my trip at a PPLIR meeting and some CAA officials seemed to be in the room. It did not really seem to bother them at all.
In places like Africa, you just have to be practical. From a practical point of view I will add a picture of how on a big major airport the handler guys approach you on the airport to refuel. It says enough I think. It is a different story over there than over here and I agree with Achim that it is quite common to fly with fuel in the jerrycans or Turble Packs when doing flights to remote places. There is simply no other way other than to stay home and … that is not what some of us want to do :-)
Pilot_DAR wrote:
600 pounds of fuel in a bladder tank in place of the bench seat in a 182 would create a 9G crash force of 5400 pounds. You’ll be hard pressed …
Quite literally !
Michael, you still don’t want to realize that nobody ever claimed he would fill a 110 gallon tank and put it in a C182! The beauty of the Turtle Pack is that you do not have to fill it and the extra capacity does not take extra space. They can be used for both 100LL and Jet so you can use one Turtle Pack for different aircraft of different sizes. I bought mine with the intention of having more than just one use — they are quite expensive!
The 9G hypothetical crash is not that big of a reason to me because first of all crash safety on those 1970s Cessnas sucks completely and using such a cabin tank is not something for every day and probably not used in commercial transport of toddlers and virgin girls. It’s a risk you can be willing to take. Here we wear bicycle helmets, safety belts and have 9 airbags but then we go on vacation to [put in whichever southern country you like] and there, cars don’t even have seat belts and road traffic is 1000x more dangerous to begin with — and we think it’s part of the culture and experience and have no problem with it. So you have to put your risks into perspective.
Otherwise as Sjoerd put it, we stay home in our AC airbagged zero risk environment and read about interesting trips on the internet while dispensing hand sanitizer 
Achima – N’uthn personal, just commenting on the pictures and commentary that was posted.
You don not need to justify your actions to me.
Agreed, one must “put your risks in perspective” and one of the greatest risks when flying GA is runway overruns & off airport landings. That’s when that 600 lb. gorilla in the back seat is likely to kill you.
Sure people don’t give two cents about such safety matters in 3/4s of the globe where they have a hard enough time finding decent water & food to survive another day.
That said, this IS a European based Forum and we are talking about, for the most part European or FAA registered aircraft .
Well, apart from the risk of runway overruns & off airport landings, there is also the risk of running out of fuel. That is where the Turtle can help and especially if you do not have a good airport als alternate along your route. I don’t think Achim or anybody is suggesting that we use the Turtle here in Europe to get a better range. They are to be used in those situations where you simply need them to make it to the next airport or to stay home. Or to land at the next airport and to be able to fill you tanks again with AVGAS as they don’t have it in the middle of nowhere in Asia or Africa. And for that purpose it is a great option to bring along.
@AeroPlus wrote:
From a practical point of view I will add a picture of how on a big major airport the handler guys approach you on the airport to refuel.
Just curious, do you let them pump fuel directly into the wing? Looking at the picture, I’d be inclined to have one of those bucket-sized filter funnels with me…
