PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - SR22 Crash - plane was upside down above the runway ?
Old 3rd Dec 2007, 10:23
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smarthawke
 
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Just to nip this one in the bud before it gets out of hand....

Integral wing tanks are very common in actual fact on all sorts of aircraft. The Cirrus has a composite wing and is sealed to form a tank inside the wing, bounded by ribs and the spar most probably.

A PA28 uses a removable section of the wing to form a tank - made from aluminium the same as the rest of the wing - it's removavble for inspection of the tank and wing but is still part of the actual wing. And no it isn't why wings are falling off PA28s left, right and centre.

New build Cessna 172s and 182s use sealed wing structure to form a tank, older 182s used a bag tank and 172s had a separate ali tank in the wing. Bag tanks dry out, crack and leak and can be very costly.

Oh and your beloved Mooney has an integral tank, just like a Ceesna or indeed the apparently pyro-Cirri - they just seal the aluminium rather than the composite structure......

PS The chances of a Land Rover running over a Cirrus wing are probably pretty remote.
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