Originally Posted by
fredo
I'm going to start putting things together now but I'm still puzzled by all these fuel tank positioning combinations. I find hard to decide but to be honest I'd loved to use what's in there. I understand, stock tanks can make it quite nose heavy but if we position our gear to make it, say, 35mm aft with uat full, main tanks empty and gear retracted, where will then GG end up if we now fill the main tanks? Maybe I should ask different way. If you are using stock tanks only (no smoke system) with the above settings, is there a significant difference between first and the second part of the flight? Do you have to trim the elevator quite a lot?
The only puzzle is why people try to alter the stock tank position. I bought a second hand JLViperjet and the previous owner had removed the intakes. Luckily he had kept them so I glued them back in and installed the tanks in stock position. We fly with the CG (tanks empty) at the front corner of the rear hatch. You can conveniently lift the plane balancing at this point. We have had a number of flights now and not changed anything from the first flight we had. It needed no nose weight and the batteries are just in front of the tanks and on top of them. We have no noticeable CG shift in flight when the tanks are full or empty. The plane is very slippery and does not need a monster turbine, we are flying with a very early Simjet 18 lb thrust engine and we fly mostly at 1/2 throttle. Fuel consumption is as a result amazing. We can fly for 10 minutes or longer on the standard tanks. You will not see a UAT on the photos as I never use them. I fit pleated paper clunks in the tanks.
John