Had a good chat with Mike / MTV, and briefly discussed my desire to take my 185F as far north as I can. He mentioned the tip tanks, those that rest inside the current span. I then went down the rabbit hole and looked at Flint extended tip tanks, and wondering if I can combine the flint tips with the in the wing tip tanks. Also curious about the baggage tanks.

For reference, I’ll be flying solo, or with just my 12 year old son at most so we have a lot of payload available. The Flint extended tips come with an up gross that would accommodate extra fuel, as well. My limitation is a smidge over 40’ hangar, I don’t mind horribly tight parking for the capability.

I’d like to have the greatest possible range without landing, and a ferry bladder / turtlepac of course is an easy option. This said it’s an uglier one than permanently plumbed solutions, with the exception of the baggage tank which would just be for the trip (if I could find one, appear mighty rare). I’ll still need to air freight fuel drums ahead, but a maximum fuel configuration will help the trip hugely.

The two Flint tank setups are individual separate STCs. I don’t know how Transport Canada views this, but in the US, it’s up to the installing A & P to determine “compatibility” of the two modifications, to ensure they don’t negatively affect each other.

So, talk with your mechanic to see what he/she says.

MTV

Not a maintenance engineer, but no way I’d call two tanks of fuel outside the strut compatible. A hard landing with full tanks and your Skywagon will be carrier ready with folding wings.

If you’re going to be on floats for this adventure, Jerry cans in the floats is how I’d go about it.

I have the flint tip tanks on my 185, and the wing is beefed up quite a bit as part of the STC.

Mine is a A185E, and only has 62 in the factory tanks.

Total is about 90 gal with the flint tip tanks.

What does your 185F hold already? I think more.

After flying my 185 to maximum range with 90 gallons several times, I absolutely don’t want to sit in that airplane a minute longer than 90 gallons allows.

The only time I want more fuel than that is on floats where fuel can be scarce. But i can fit about 14 five gallon cans in my floats.

A 5 hr leg in a wagon is enough for me.

Another point is which engine do you have? I really don’t have much experience with a 520 but my 550D runs about exactly like an SR22 engine (550N) and runs cool and smooth lean of peak.

While I don’t like to push the engine LOP at high power settings, at 23” and 2450 RPM you pick up around 150 miles of range while not hurting the engine at 14 gph or so. Compared to running rich of peak

Another solution might be the addition of bladders just outboard of the stock tanks. Can’t recall the name of the company off the top of my head, but we had one 206 with stock long range tanks and these outboard. Carried over 125 gallons or so. Essentially, they install a bladder that fills the next outboard bay, and connect it to the main bladder, so gravity feed.

Primary complaint was it took a long time to fill that outboard tank…..fill main, wait till it ran into outboard, top off again, wait……etc.

But a good system, and keeps gas inboard.

I agree the two Flint tanks outboard would cause massive wallowing. Would not want to land full of gas.

MTV

Monarch Aux tanks are inboard of the strut and have their own filler. Gravity feed daisy chained tanks, essentially. They empty with the mains, not prior to the mains. They weigh 26 lbs installed with caps and interconnects. There isn’t a provision for sending unit on the aux tank, unfortunately. There isn’t a legal way to isolate them when capacity isn’t desired, unfortunately. Dealing with Monarch isn’t my favorite, but I’m glad I have the tanks. Mine added 18.5 gallons per tank.

The older version of this STC has pumps (tanks don’t gravity feed). Monarch no longer supports this system. It’s a heavier system and more complex, but being able to only fill the mains sometimes would be nice.

I looked at Flints, but I didn’t like the idea given the firmness of some of my landings.

The Monarch tanks require cutting open the tank bay, then adding tank covers.

The mod I described used bladders, so a hole is cut in top of wing big enough (barely) to insert bladders, then closed over. As I recall, adding a filler there was an option…..but a loooong reach on floats.

MTV

Ross4289 wrote:I have the flint tip tanks on my 185, and the wing is beefed up quite a bit as part of the STC.

Mine is a A185E, and only has 62 in the factory tanks.

Total is about 90 gal with the flint tip tanks.

What does your 185F hold already? I think more.

After flying my 185 to maximum range with 90 gallons several times, I absolutely don’t want to sit in that airplane a minute longer than 90 gallons allows.

The only time I want more fuel than that is on floats where fuel can be scarce. But i can fit about 14 five gallon cans in my floats.

A 5 hr leg in a wagon is enough for me.

Not sure what happened to my original post...but here is another try at it.

The comment above seems to come up every time somebody raises questions about longer range. But for remote backcountry flying, it is not about having fuel for a single leg of 8 hours, the goal is to be able to fly multiple legs in regions where fuel is not available, so you need to start with fuel for multiple, perhaps many, legs in order to fly there. There are great reaches of Alaska and Canada where fuel is not available. Extended range fuel allows you to explore those areas.

Thanks guys, I’ll look into the bladders, that seems a cost effective and elegant option. A turtlepac is probably the most sensible option by the sounds of things to get as far as I’d hope to.

As for leg length, unfortunately I’d need 12hrs for where I’d like to go, and it looks like the turtlepac ferry bladder is the way to go.

I have a TurtlePac for my R44 and absolutely love it. Folds up and can be transported easily. Many are used to ferry Cessnas to Hawaii and then shipped home after leaving no trace in the aircraft. Prices are reasonable considering it’s a monopoly.

Mine is (33) gallons, but a friend in Argentina flys a (66) gallon in his R44.

Great to hear from a user of them, I love the idea of not “reconfiguring” and leaving my extended fuel installed by having extra wing bladders and tips, and maybe a baggage tank. But realistically the turtlepac is elegantly simple and I don’t need the back seat for this trip.

I spent ten years early in my career flying Robby’s in the north, and always wished they had longer legs. 300 miles doesn’t account for much up there, especially in the avgas machines where fuel availability is patchy. Would have been a handy tool for the long ferries.