Here I go again, completely contradicting myself from something I posted 5 minutes ago. I think that my experiences in flying from Sandy Eggo to Buckeye, about 300 miles, and my adventures with the fuel, may have soured my outlook a little on going long distances. For those that don't recall, my probe in my tank was slightly short of the bottom of the tank, and even though I was almost positive that I had enough to get to YUMA MCAS, when that needle dropped off into the red, that creepy feeling set in and knotted my stomch. I didn't know about that gap, because I never before let the gas get down to that last 1/4 tank. I thought that the probe pretty much bottomed out.
So I wound up landing in the sand next to a bunch of off-roaders who were camped out and playing with their toys in the desert. Someone donated 6 gallons of gas from a sand-encrusted can, getting sand into my tank and soon burning up one of my fuel pumps. I was so excited to find some gas, I forgot about the precautions I should have taken to filter the gas. Then, my take-off attempts were futile in the soft sand. I couldn't get up enough speed on the bumpy sand. I managed to lift off once, but settled back down behind the power curve. I had to land or smack into a sand dune. The choice was obvious. Luckily I did have enough speed for a soft landing. Some of the people there got a flat-bed trailer, we loaded her up, drove about 3 miles to a remote road, and I took off while they blocked any possible traffic down the road. Off-roaders are neat people. One said that I gave them enough to talk about for the next 2 years.
When I'm about 50 miles from Buckeye, the needle takes another dive and here I am again. I see 2 tractors planting or plowing or something and I'm thinking of how and where to land near them and mooch some tractor gas. You know the saying about how the "Big Man" takes care of fools and drunks? I hadn't had a drink in ages. I pressed on past the tractors, as I couldn't see any place to land near them. I then saw a construction yard that was closed with several trucks in the yard. I actually considered landing on the road and stealing some gas out of the tanks and leaving a note that I would send them a check. With my luck it would have been diesel.
Anyway, as I'm scanning for a place to land, I notice a little glimpse of something orange in the distance. It's right next to a large grove of trees... IT'S A WINDSOCK!! It was this bevy of homes around a small lake with their own airstrip! I landed and someone came out to greet me on a 4-wheeler. Unlike my brain-fart in the desert, I checked the 6-gallon mark I had drawn on my tank, and there was actually about 7 gallons in my tank. I meant to carry my "mirror-on-a-stck" with me, so I could check that mark if need be, but of course I forgot to bring it. If I had it with me, I could have confirmed that I had more than enough gas to make it to Yuma and wouldn't have had to land in the sand and buy a new fuel pump.
Where am I going with this? Oh yeah. I had seen some great looking, cylindrical aluminum tanks at this off-road store near the airport awhile back. I recall that they seemed reasonably priced. If I added one on each side near the thrustline, that would probably encourage me to be a little more adventurous as to leaving the area more. Anyone ever added a couple tanks like this? The feed from the tanks to my seat tank would be pretty simple. I'm going to go take a look today and see what sizes they come in. They had nice, solid-looking mounting brackets included. Gimme some opinions.
