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I saw this pic of o2 installed in the tailcone of an -8 and I must say that it is pretty slick!



My guess is the -7 is too tail heavy to do this. I suppose in a -7 you could mount it in the baggage area. This is definately better, though!

CJ

Slick until the bottles have to come out to be tested. Nice and out of the way though. Wonder how much that setup weighs ?

Just weighed one of our own full O2 bottles. The weight of a bottle the same style and size as the pictured bottle is 15# 5.6 ounces each. By the way they are known as E tanks.

WOW! That is EXTREMELY light!

Maybe there is room for that in my plane after all!?!

CJ

Now this is the kind of stuff that this type of site is perfect for! I have heard of ski tubes installed back there but don't have any pictures of that either. Thanks for posting that one Captain John.

My pleasure!

The other thing I would like to do is a rifle/fishing rod tube!

CJ

Geeez!
I dunno Capt John, that looks like a lot of weight, too far back. Plus, I see a battery tray right in front of those tanks. If those tanks do weigh thirty pounds together, that must be too much weight, too far aft. I wanna tube for fishing rods also and maybe a sleeping bag/pillow storage bin, but not that far aft. Picture yourself in a spin with all that inertia way back there????

We are wanting an O2 bottle also, but I want it easily removeable. Realistically, how many times will you use O2 in a year??
Cheers, Pete

Yah, I agree...

That is ALOTTA stuff out on the aft! Kinda like this chick I know... nevermind. Anyways, the storage tube is a must have item. The O2 could be secured in the baggage compartment right behind the seat backs and used only on those long trips with extended legs and bladders! Typically, I don't see legs longer than a couple of hours initially. That would make anything like this a retrofit after several W&B's were done.

I am a prudent man.

CJ

Not only is it a bunch of weight, but it looks to me that the way it is mounted is purely to the skins. I would think that the torque applied to the skins would be enormous just sitting there much less in flight. I wonder if the picture is deceiving us in its portrayal of the mounting system.


-- John

If you look closely you can just make out a doubler so the stress on the skin doesn't look to bad to me at all. I don't think aft CG will be too much of a problem either. My friend's RV-8 has the battery mounted aft and still can't three point the thing unless someone is in the back seat.

Besides, if the CG get's too far aft you could always block off one tank and put helium in it!

Helium!!!

I love it! I am gonna put it in my tires so I can land on water!

CJ

Hold the phone folks. I just took another look at those tanks and they are aluminum. Last week we got a couple of aluminum tanks that I put directly on our anesthesia machine. They are most definitely lighter than the steel tanks. How much lighter? I don’t know but at least a couple of pounds I’ll have to weigh one of them the next time I have a chance to take one off.

Useless information:

Well, I dunno exactly the weight difference, but I use steel high pressure dive tanks and my buddy has alumuminum ones. When I mooch a tank from him I have to add about 15 lbs. of lead to my belt in order to descend. They are 80 cube tanks. I am guessing my steel ones empty to be about 45 lbs. without weighing it.

FWIW...

CJ

svanarts wrote:If you look closely you can just make out a doubler so the stress on the skin doesn't look to bad to me at all.

I did see the doubler, but couldnt see what the doubler was attatched to. It still looks to me like its attatched to the skin only. Anyone know the builder ? I would love for them to stop by and tell us about it.

-- John

Couldn’t help myself I took both tanks off last night and weighed them. One was empty Aluminum the other full Aluminum. The full tank weighed 10 lbs. 15.2 Oz. and the empty one weighed 9 lbs. 2 Oz. Both of them are E size Medical oxy tanks. It also looks like Pop rivets on the doubler.

Well, I thought I would bring this one TTT.

I found this on ebay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayI ... 52523&rd=1

Not as big as Jim's tanks, but really light! This tank is "D" sized.



Jim, How long does yours last... approximately?

CJ

Sure looks like some large oxygen tanks in the first picture. Wonder how long the supply is? Maybe you could get away with one and run a splitter to reduce the weight.