I too agonized over the suitability of a "morphing" fuel tank so close to the
primary flight controls....and decided on an alloy replacement. Since nobody
was advertising replacement alloy Europa tanks, I decided to build my own=2E For
those of you considering a similar course of action.....here are some of my
observations, both for and against.
If you want to get somebody else to build it fo you it will be expensive. The
complexity of the shape requires many hours of planning and bending, even
though there are no compound curves in any of the panels. The =A3700 you were
quoted Miles, sounds pretty reasonable to me. That leaves one option.....build
it yourself.
Is that possible?
In my opinion...yes.
I, like most of the Europa building fraternity, am a "fist time builder" with
no prior aircraft constructing or metalworking experience, yet by applying the
same techniques of thinking carefully about what you want to do BEFORE you do
it, it really is quite straightforward if somewhat time consuming.....mine set
me back by exactly a year!
Doing it yourself brings the cost down dramatically. I managed to cut all of
the panels out of a 2500mm x 1250mm x 1.2mm sheet of 5251 1/4 hard alloy,
cost..60 GBP (although I bough 2). Here in the UK, this is the nearest I could
get to the 5052 H32 available in the US and supplied by Aircraft Spruce for
fuel tank construction. A.
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