![]() ![]() Fuel imbalances have a huge impact because the arm is so long.On my plane there is about a 8kt speed penalty from having the tanks taking up space in the airstream (based on the performance of other PL-2s modified to tankless wet-wing). If I skid the airplane with rudder, the roll into the yaw is very mild, in spite of significant dihedral. The mass also kills a lot of the roll-yaw couple and amplifies adverse yaw. I prefer to fly it with about 1/2 fuel if I'm just going out for an hour or so. My airplane is much more snappy with minimum fuel vs full fuel, and wags its tail in turbulence much less. The inertia magnifies roll and yaw disturbances. The mass of the fuel way outboard in the wings is a total pain. The flattened and canted tanks you see on twin engine Cessnas was intended to produce a bit of vertical lift and an enhanced dihedral effect to offset some of the inertial issues in roll that the fuel mass creates which leads to. ![]() The tuna fish shaped tank doesn't function like a winglet (it has to be a wing to work like a winglet) and is too small to have any kind of end plate effect of significance (an end plate has to extend for a full chord to do any good that exceeds its own drag). I happen to own a homebuilt with tip tanks for ALL of the fuel supply (Pazmany PL-2), and while they look really cool, I'd prefer the fuel was in the wing leading edges mid span. ![]()
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