Flaring

I’ve done lots of flaring when landing, but never on a tube!

The kit includes 12ft of 1/4″ Aluminium tube, and since each vent line is 4ft 6ins, that left 3ft of tube … hmmm. I read ahead and eventually worked out that 8ins is required for a pitot tube, and 2ft for the connecting tubes from the vent line fittings to outside the wing. Not much spare then, unless you are planning a third party Pitot/AOA gauge as I am. So happily I had a piece of spare tube on which to practice flaring!

I purchased a Rol-Air 37º Flaring Tool, which is well recommended on forums and the like. It’s a quality tool, and on following the instructions telling me to wind the flare tool 6-7 half turns, I ended up with more a trumpet than a flare! More research needed then …

The tube comes rolled up, so it took a few minutes gently bending by hand to end up with two straight lengths of tube.

I found the above relating to 37º flare dimensions, so I ended up with a flare width of about 0.35″ which seemed about right.

After a trial fit in the tank with the tube cut a bit longer than the manual’s suggestion of 54 1/16″ just in case, I of course discovered that 54 1/16″ was a perfect length : )

It was easy to gently bend the tube by hand to align with the outboard vent tube support.

This will not be the final bend for the inboard end, since in the left tank it will have to accommodate the Fuel Lever Sender Float … which I’ll fit once the inboard rib is installed.

In the right tank the float is orientated the other way so will be well clear of this tube.

My plan is to fit and Proseal the Bulkhead Union (Blue Fitting) in the rib before riveting the rib in place, so that’s the next job on the left tank.