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Old 19th Oct 2016, 17:01
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PDR1
 
Join Date: Nov 2015
Location: Mordor
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If you cast your mind back to Rutan's Voyager round-the world flight you'll have seen an example of just this.

The flight was due to depart at around dawn, and the aeroplane was positioned on the runway the previous evening where it was checked out and fully fuelled - brim-filled in fact to avoid moisture condensation in the tanks. Overnight temps in the desert fell very low, and so by morning it was pretty cool and the fuel on the aeroplane shrank.

Someone actually checked the fuel by dip-stick, and found the tanks weren't completely full. They assumed this was due to fuel system air pockets having worked their way into the main tanks (curiously by an almost identical amount on each side), so that person had the fuel tanks topped-off again. This meant that the aeroplane was actually carrying (IIRC) a couple of hundred pounds of extra fuel - putting it above MTOW. The extra fuel in the wings, coupled to the negative AoA ground attitude and the bumps, caused the wing tips to scrape on the ground shortly after the start of the take-off roll. Before it left the ground the wing tips were so badly abraded that the winglets fell off a few minutes into the flight...

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