cjensen

cjensen

Well Known Member
Anyone see any problems with this location for my smoke tank? It's just sitting there right now, no holes drilled yet...

5-9-09-002w.jpg
 
Chad,

I'm thinking you will want to make it larger. :D That and you will want to put an oil door on that side to fill it.

Some will mention that you have just put an un-insulated plastic oil tank FwF. If that is an issue, take your plastic bottle to a fabricator and have them weld up an aluminum tank that will fit in your holder. The other option is to have them make one you can attache to your engine mount.

Also, you might want to check out how the Kansas City Dawn Patrol rigged their smoke system. They have some good lessons learned on that page. Besides, Dick Stark is always a funny read.
 
Last edited:
PS.

I would strengthen the bottle holder. Your plane is designed for +6, -4 G's and I doubt that holder will remain in place when it is full of oil and you are playing. Even if you go with it, put a strap on the top to keep it from moving up when you hit an air pocket.
 
Last edited:
Good points Bill...I was planning on putting another oil door there if I put it there. I'll check out that dawn patrol site as well, thanks!
 
Kahuna said:
You wont smoke much with that.
You can expect on the order of .7gal/min.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I kinda figured that, but at the same time I only want it to do the occasional fun pass down a runway, and to help others see me when my traffic detector squawks at me...;)
 
My 2 cents...

1) Listen to Mike....size matters - especially when it comes to the smoke tank. You may think you'll never use it and that tank will suffice, but if you get good corvus oil or something similar and crank it up to the point where it'll do a good job on leaving smoke, that tank will barely be worth the effort..at least in my opinion.

2) Bill guessed right - I'm not one to advocate a storage device for a flammable/combustible fluid forward of the firewall unless it's insulated or protected. Do you know what the melting point of that container is and how it'll stand up to a couple/few hundred degrees of heat? Those are things I'd want to know before keeping a tank full of oil sitting up there.

3) Remember you still need a pump, some sort of check valve and preferably a metering valve to adjust the volume. Keep that in mind when locating this thing.

I guess in the end it's pretty hard to beat the tried/true known area for mounting these things. People have tried about everything, and most of the testing has resulted in the choice being what it is. No need to try and re-invent the wheel. That being said, next time I do it I'll copy Mike! :)

Cheers,
Stein
 
smokin' 7's

I can't recommend Jon at SmokingAirplanes enough. His kit is one of the most thorough I've bought building my airplance. He now sells an external fill kit which I would rate as pretty important for the dash-sevens. It's only when and how much for getting oil in the baggage area without an external fill (at least for me that'd be the case).

I put his kit in the back of my -7 as pictured below. It's not unnattractive in my opionin, but my tonneau covers it up anyway. It's completely removable in minutes, although isn't that bad for space as-is. My CG's are solid, with or with out the tank.

It just worked. I installed two injectors and had to make almost no adjustments to produce good smoke.

Smoke on.

Don

platte2_049.sized.jpg
 
dhall_polo said:
I can't recommend Jon at SmokingAirplanes enough. His kit is one of the most thorough I've bought building my airplance. He now sells an external fill kit which I would rate as pretty important for the dash-sevens.
Click to expand...

Now this is a completely considered. I've wondered that who really wants to go to the baggage side with can and fill these tanks. This certainly makes this option more desirable and cost for the external fill kit is reasonable.

The system itself feels a bit pricey for a plastic can and a pump, but there ain't free apples.
 
smoking

Chad,

I had been thinking for some time about adding smoke but don't want to put oil in the bagage area. If you decide to keep it up front and change to a differnet tank then have one made up from stainless. Last night I was at the airport and a hanger neighbor was out working on his Christen, he had his heat muff repaired by a guy up at Burlington. They used all new material, stainless, and it was a work of art. $70.00
 
Thanks Pete...I don't want oil in the baggage either, and I don't want to run lines from there either. This little tank may work well between the footwells sitting on top of the center floor cover as well. That was my original location for it until I realized it would fit in front. I may just move it back to the cabin...

This tank came as a kit from a company called Sky Smoke...they make this kit for powered parachutes, so the pump that comes with it is no where near capable of running in an RV, but the rest of the stuff is there. Pretty good deal for $140!:cool:
 
If tank size and location is a problem, you can order tanks of all shapes and sizes. My buddy just bought this one and installed it under the fwd skin of his rv-4. ~5gal. Pretty cool. They have all sorts of shapes and sizes and can put the filler cap and pickups where ever you want.
Best,
 
I've finally gotten around to revisiting my smoke tank location, and also found out that the expired O2 tank that I posted about a while back is a fiber wrapped aluminum tank! This will work great for a smoke tank, I think!

1-11-10-001w.jpg


Now...where can I put this thing? My first thought is that since it is an AL tank, with fiber wrapping, it would *probably* be okay north of the firewall...but with just the top cut off, it's pretty big...that's also a good thing! In the pic, it appears to be almost touching the exhaust...it's actually a good four to five inches from it.

1-11-10-002w.jpg


So...my question is, is there a safe way to mount this tank in this location off the mount? I will make an AL lid for the tank that I will proseal in place once fittings and a fill port is installed.

I really want to keep it out of the baggage area, but realistically, if I want to keep the tank that size, that's the only other spot it will fit. I can cut it down farther...make it smaller...but I like the capacity. It's probably about two gallons right now, so the capacity is much bigger than that plastic tank I have.

Thoughts?
 
I would *really* feel uncomfortable having any fuel (smoke) storage in the cowling. Get a race car fuel cell and mount it in the baggage area. Mine's 3.5 gals and in the fwd baggage - behind the insulated firewall and a control valve.
 
hydroguy2 said:
what does it do to your W&B?
Click to expand...

No clue...haven't figured that yet...that spot would be in front of the CG, obviously.

The more I think about it, putting it in the baggage area like Don did, might work out fine if I run the lines up along/underneath the canopy rail.

Don, do you have pictures of your exterior fill port?
 
smoke tank report

Chad, Reading your posts about attempts to get the smoke tank anywhere but the baggage area gives me fond memories of the same machinations I went through in deciding what to do about the smoke tank. Back then, smokingairplanes didn't offer the external filler, which was an absolute requirement for me for any in-the-cockpit location. I know me, and there's no doubt that I'd spill oil, frequently and liberally, in the cockpit. John at smokingairplanes helped me solve all the external filler issues, and that made the cockpit location doable. I went through some humorous "home-depot" attempts to solve that problem myself, but thankfully John came through.

My installation process, including some of the oddball trials and tribulations, is documented here: don's smoke tank install

So, now that I've been flying for a bit, how do I like it? If I had to do it over, I do it the same way. Location and volume in the storage area are a non-issue. The smokingairplanes system works *great*, and John provides excellent support when needed.

Here's a pic of the external filler. I bought a fancy one from acs, but nowadays John supplies a different one with his kit. Mine locks, and it looks great, but it's 2" opening instead of 1.5", so it required me to add a reducer (from home-depot). If you buy John's kit, you get a black filler cap that doesn't require funky reducers. My reducer works great, no leaks. One thing is that my filler location is below the longeron, and thus below the level of my tonneau cover and out of sight. The downside of this is that the tube down into the tank doesn't have quite enough slope. So I have to get the funnel in there when I fill the tank. It's not uncommon for some oil to drool out of the filler, and you can see this in the pic. The filler does not drool except maybe a little when I open it or add oil.
web.jpg


See how much junk you can still load? Enroute to Osh, I stacked baggage to the top. I had chairs, bags, cooler, oxygen tank, etc. No issues with CG and I don't wont for more storage.
web.jpg


Smoke On!
web.jpg


Good Luck.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.