Where is Fuel Stored?
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You may be amazed where some of the fuel is stored on modern aircraft, and more importantly, the reasons for it, are #NotWhatYouThink #NWYT #longs
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Fuel is stored in the balls
Lmfao
Thats what i thought
Beat me to it
This is the comment I came for
😂😂
Wet wings doesn't mean fuel tanks in the wings it means that the wing skins make up the tank. A Cessna for instance has wing tanks but it's not a wet wing sice the fuel is stored in bladders.
You are correct, and thank you for the clarification 👍🏼
Some Cessna aircraft have bladders, but lots do not.
@@thomasaltruda some have aluminum tanks but I'm not aware of any wet wing cessna's. It's beside the point though. Wet wing is in reference to the wing being the tank.
@@mp-xt2rg you’re right. I was thinking metal tanks vs bladder tanks.. ok, RV aircraft are wet wing, as are Mooney.
@@HJ-zn5go I think he means wet wings as in the tank is made by sealing off the individual bays between the ribs.. metal tank Cessna’s have a removable metal tank, not an integral wing tank like RV and Mooney aircraft.
Maaaaan, I forgot how silly Shake weights are. Great vid!
I got throwbacks to that one South Park episode lmao
Man wtf virat kohli doing here
@@laplthelullemann 😂😂
@@laplthelullemann didn’t know that is a real product
lol this a silly comment 😅
The SR-71 didn’t hit the tanker right after launch because of leakage but because of the takeoff weight, mainly. Cheers!
Good to know 👍🏼
Thank you. Came here to piont that out, too.
what do you mean? it was too heavy to refuel?
@@Azer1125 no it was too heavy to take off with a full load of fuel, so they gave it the minimum and once its airborne they fill it up with the rest. It needed to be lighter to get off the ground, but once its up it can stay up.
@@NotWhatYouThink Yep, apparently there's a tendency for the blackbird to want to flip over if it takes off with too much fuel.
You know what would be great.. A Not What You Think and Real Engineering collab
Absolutely
Sounds good
Hell ya
Yes please
You are right
There is also the matter of forces. If you put fuel into wings, you put weight into place where lift is, significantly lowering forces on connections between wings and fuselage and thus expanding life of machine, also allowing to use weaker joints there. Probably this is bigger reason to use fuel from fuselage first, or don't even put it there at all.
That was partly what we covered under the “reducing stress” segment toward the end. But thanks for elaborating.
Reduces” wing flex” I believe during takeoffs
Kyuren You are correct. One factor in fueling these aircraft is zero fuel weight. Zero fuel is the weight of fuel carried in the fuselage along with the rest of the load. Zero fuel weight is startlingly lower than max takeoff weight. The weight of fuel in the wings reduces the stress on the wing as you mentioned. I had to calculate that one time with the dispatcher as we had 3000lb fuel in the center tank of a B747 do to inop. scavenge pump. As a side note carrying that fuel LAX-JFK would result in an additional fuel burn of 1000lb. That is why fuel tankering is not often done.
@@jayreiter268 Not often, but it does happen. I was aboard a Hughes Airwest flight from Houston to Burbank via Phoenix in 1979 (Iran crisis) where the captain told us we were tankering extra fuel for a flight which couldn't take off from Phoenix.
@@ericbowen650 You are correct. When it is done there is a reason like no fuel availability. Also there have been political reasons that a high tax would be charged to refuel.
They are SR71 Blackbird was refueled after takeoff because of weight limitations. Fuel loss on the ground because of loose fitting panels is measured in drips per minute, so not a significant factor to the point where the fuel tanks are going to need to get topped off right after takeoff. When he asked a question why do you think aircraft burn fuel in their Center tanks before the wing tanks I thought of fire risk, burn the cabin fuel first and also because of the weight in the wings will help with the flutter issue and stability. The fuel pump failure thing isn't really a top consideration
I think you hit the nail on the head with the stability, but I don't believe you were right about the fire hazard. Usually you want to burn fuel from the rear/front balanced to maintain your center of gravity which will be just in front of your center of lift. If you burned off your wing tank fuel first, you would induce a lot of aerodynamic instability by having your CG be WAY more likely to move around from fuel slosh. Also having most of your mass close to the body reduces your angular momentum resulting in much more sensitive roll controls.
I think you guys are all correct. Maintaining a decent centre of gravity, helping with roll control, reducing risks in the event of a fire, gravity feeding, etc. All correct
Sr71 fuel isnt flammable. Shell was asked specifically to engineer a type of jet fuel that was flammable. Its why you see videos of the pilots putting their cigars out in the fuel while its leaking.
The use of bladders is mostly in military aircraft because those tend to get shot at. The bladder's material is designed to be self-sealing against holes caused by bullets and small debris, whereas just the metal of the wing would not self-close.
Well they had self sealing fuel tanks in ww2. It's more of a weight saving solution to the old one. Instead of a heavier metal tank filled with a layer of rubber between plates, you have just the layers of rubber, getting rid of that amount of steel weight.
@@volatile100 I'm not sure what you mean. With a bladder you still need a rigid structure to keep it in place.
Pretty cool how they started using that seemingly high tech equipment in WW2
@@TheNefastor If memory serves, early self-sealing tanks weren't bladders in boxes, but were rigid like regular tanks. But instead of their walls being simple sheets of metal, they were sandwiches of a rubber layer between metal layers. When pierced, the rubber was exposed to the fuel, which made it swell and that swelling sealed the hole. I think that's what they're talking about.
Oil ships: Don’t smoke! It will ignite the oil! Military: *“we dont do that here”*
They knew what they signed up for after all
@D L There was a major fire on an aircraft carrier that was caused by a sailor smoking in an unauthorized location. I'm sure that totally destroyed the career of the captain of the ship.
There are vents just above deck level on tankers where the personnel are likely to be. Correct me if I'm wrong but people don't walk around the vents on aircraft to the same extent. And even if they did its not like there's a large wall visible from everywhere where you could put a similar sign to tankers.
It would be fuel-ish to store the fuel unsafely.
I imagine this will get top comment
Greetings duck man, yesterday my only pet duckling had drowned in soapy water.
@@siyacer I’m so sorry man
@@siyacer I am really sorry to hear that. I'm here for you, losing a pet really takes a toll and I'm very sorry. I'm sure you made it's life wonderful and great and I'm sure it's face lit up every time it saw you.
When was the last time somebody slapped you?
Between channels like this and reading random Wikipedia articles when bored, it's amazing how much interesting trivia you can pick up.
You know its a good day when not what you think uploads a 8 minute video
Indeed. More of these please we like longer format
"You heard it right ...if you don't have hearing loss" Holy shit that's an S tier joke
B tier...
Wait, there are tiers? 😅
If you don't have hearing loss, you work in an office.
What?
Load shift was part of it. but it mainly was a heavy armored vehicle that hit the Jack screw in the back which is what controls the horizontal stabilizers that caused the plane to be uncontrollable. Simulations were done by the NTSB, and it showed that even if all the vehicles move to the back the plane would have still been controllable it was a broken Jack screw, and the fact was bent backwards that caused the crash.
Punctuation is important, kids.
Why and who Jack screw in the back?
@@theclockworkcadaver7025 Fixed lol
7:25 Storing fuel in the wings does NOT "increase the rigidity of the structure" - fuel contributes no structural rigidity (stiffness) at all, just mass. So the wings are just as rigid when their tanks are empty, but their inertia and natural frequency of vibration have increased. Wing fuel storage allows the wing structure to be built much lighter (thus the airplane has better performance and efficiency) than it would have to be if the same fuel was all stored only in the fuselage. Spreading the fuel weight out over the entire tip-to-tip wingspan results in a distributed load, which is inherently less stressful than putting it all in the middle as a single point load, during flight. Wing lift is generated all along the span too.
thanks for clarification
Didn’t he say they must make the wings more rigid and not the fuel it self that makes it rigid?
@@bruhmode6836 ya, that's what I heard. wasn't he talking about flutter and how to prevent it?
@@Inertia888 No, he did not say that. And in any case, that's not true either. There is no additional rigidity in a wing designed for fuel storage. In fact, the opposite is true: an airplane with fuel in the fuselage (not wings) has to have much stronger, heavier, and MORE rigid wings for the reasons I already explained.
@@bruhmode6836 See my reply to derrick.
That was a well organized video. Nicely put all throughout. I loved how many different point you made about the why it is.
3:42 imagine being in that car and just seeing a plane crash next to you
A "wet wing" is a wing tank where the wing is the fuel tank rather than having bladders to store the fuel inside the wing, a lot of aircraft have wing tanks and among them is the P-51 Mustang, Bf 109, Fw 190, Spitfire and other Warbirds which all use bladders known as self sealing fuel tanks.
Another Not What you think video. I really enjoy your longer videos, there is so much information at once than in the shorts. I would really love to see more such long videos. Nevertheless, keep on doing! Thank you.
Thank you. We publish long video every Friday, so keep an eye out for them 😉
7
@ 3:35 it's not just the weight shift (balance) that caused the accident: a military vehicle got loose and damaged the horizontal stabilizer so the crew could no longer controle the plane pitch.
That crew that was killed due to unbalancing my unit actually had to replace those guys parts of my company were actually at The fob where it happened they had to help clean up.
Let's just say Railhead crew had to go through extremely expensive training after that incident happened
Another quality video, keep up the good work! The puns here and there add magic to these videos.
Great video, I feel like a major part has not been explained well enough, while on the ground the gear might hold the fueselage in the air that is the wings. By shifting some weight from the fueselage to the wings the wings carry the load more directly meaning the root of the wing experiences less stress, simply because the weight is now directly carried by the wings. I think that’s also part of why the middle tank gets drained first. It simply is an extra tank to hold a bit more fuel. And if it’s empty is isn’t really providing much weight. All in all this is an amazing vid with information I truly dint know about
The centre tank or tanks on commercial aircraft provide the majority of fuel for any long distance flight. A Boeing 767 for example holds 18.5 tons per wing and another 36 tons in the centre tank. Boeing 737 holds 8500 pounds per wing and the centre tank holds almost double that at 15,000 and change, more on the NG series.
6:11 shake dumbbells is the only thing that can make my arms the same size
I knew about the "Not what you think shorts" but this is also very good videos, I learned a lot about planes thank you ^^ Knowledge is power
Interesting Ill try to make the next video about this issue, Nice done
It’s so cool seeing the Tacoma Narrows Bridge getting recognition. It was 5 minutes from my childhood home!!
Man I lost it at 'if anyone is looking for a wingman, this is your guys":)
I learned more than I expected, good video!
Very informative! Thanks
Thanks for exposing all I suffered to gain in the university
Great video. Informative and funny too!! Thank you!
Funny that you included a lot of footage of tankers, which have wet wings but store the bulk of their extra fuel in the fuselage.
I don’t know why, but those shakeweight scenes really threw me off for a second
The Soviet BMP-1 is another engineering marvel with the fuel tank being built into the rear door and entrance to the troop compartment.
“You heard it right......if you don’t have hearing loss” *Oh snap* Edit: “......ok I never thought someone could make such an interesting video on basically fuel tanks....”
Thanks! And I have noticed you following our channel and commenting regularly. We appreciate it!
@@NotWhatYouThink It’s my pleasure! I’ve actually been following your channel and watching your vids for a long while, I’ve only recently joined Notif Squad though! (Plus, I’ve been saying “But it’s not what you think” around the house, so I think I owe something to you guys for making me a motto😆)
As someone that maintained fuel systems on a c-130, I can confirm the hearing loss. I can still hear everything, but it becomes harder to interrupt the sound. One example is at a sports game, I can hear someone talking but if I'm not focused on them I can't understand what they're saying. Of course the VA denied all my disability claims because I can pass the hearing test with tones at different frequencies.
Very informative . ❤️
I've been waiting for this
Mike Patey and Scrappy taxiing around without wings, nice!
How can u be so informative yet funny lol. My teachers have a lesson to learn form you😂😂
fuel in the fuselage still comes in handy in fighters e.g the fw190 which has an incredible role rate for that very reason.
I was a Engine and fuel system mechanic (6216) for C130Js in the marine corps and we did a ton of aerial refueling if anyone has questions about aviation fueling please ask!
Fascinating stuff - there were so many more reasons than I thought there were, holy sh!t...
3:41 That was at Bagram Air Base, I was there when it crashed. Literally just walked out the showers that morning. Crazy day. Few days later another plane crashed at Manas Air Base, very similar circumstances.
Thank you for these videos ☺️ especially this one, quite informative & the little bits of funny comedic pieces added is awesome 👍 'but it is not what you think'😂👌🤣
Glad you enjoyed it!
@@NotWhatYouThink I always do enjoy your video.
Loved the shoutout too scrappy. Back to work!
5:16 "If anyone is looking for a wingman, this is your guy!" 😂😂😂
so many cool things that go into designing a plane wow
You make really good videos 👍😎
It's also structurally efficient. The weight of the fuel is directly above the upwards force of lift. You don't have to structurally transfer that upwards force to the fuselage. So the aircraft can be lighter.
@1:48, KC10 86-0032. Crewed that jet for 4 years in the 90’s at Travis AFB.
Beautiful
This videos so funny 🤣 NWYT gets the word placement just right. Wing man ha.
The definition goes to show why I should have stayed in school. Read it 6 times and each time it went over my head.
Hi Mr not what you think!I I enjoy your videos and short videos too 😃👍
In the event of a missed approach at the final moment or a hard landing fuel in the wings is preferable to the fuselage because it's easier on the wing spars.
There is a key factor here that is missing, and that is range. Fuel tanks in the wings have been a common theme in aviation since the 1930s, provided that the plane has the structural means and performance incentive to mount them. That said, having only centerline tanks up to that point has been cause for very short range aircraft that could make only small inter-airport hops across the continental United States. However, with the introduction of wing tanks in planes such as the famous DC (Douglas Commercial) series of aircraft, they were able to go from small hops to direct-route flights. It wasn't going to get you from New York to London on a single tank in the early days, but the upstart airlines like PANAM and BOAC could make longer trips, stop at fewer airports, and save on aviation fuel. This became a critical logistical point for the Allied Forces in World War II, when planes like the venerable B-17 could fly from airfields in Great Britain, bomb a factory, military port or rail depot in Nazi Germany, then fly back home without needing to stop for fuel. Then small fighters like the P-51D could make that trip as well, though with the addition of wing-mounted "drop tanks" to extend the range of the fighters. Eventually, we had it with the Boeing B-29 Superfortress, which could take off from islands in the pacific, bomb Imperial Japan or North Korea (depending on which war you're looking at), then return home without refueling. As radial and inline piston engines (and later turbojet engines) became more fuel efficient, less fuel would be spent getting from point A to point B. And by keeping internal fuel stores in the wings, they further extended an aircraft's operating range to the point where we could finally fly intercontinental with aircraft like the Tu-95 and its commercial cousin, the Tu-114. Also, a small complaint, but wing tanks do not envelop the entire wing structure. In almost all aircraft that have wing tanks, there are sections of wing that are set aside for fuel, while the rest of the wing is filled with hydraulic lines, cables and wires for the control surfaces, lights and other wing-mounted hardware.
It was my understanding that during WWII that there was shuttle bombing of Germany. Plane would take off and bomb Germany, keep flying, land in the USSR, get refueled and reloaded, then fly back and bomb Germany on their way back to their home base.
@@kittredgeseely3542 This was true, but it also depended on mission profile and the state of affairs between the Allies (US, France, England, Italy post-Mussolini) and Comintern (USSR and other communist nations). Early in the war, the USSR was very suspicious of the US armed forces, and would not allow them to launch or land bombers from Soviet airfields. This distrust shifted throughout the war, and while forgotten in propaganda films, was largely a major obstacle in long term cooperation on the Eastern Front. Author and historian Mark Felton covers this in his video on Operation Frantic (aptly titled "Stalin's American Air Force"). Then of course late in the war in 1945, the suspicion and distrust increased, to the point that they wanted to gain an early advantage in the coming Cold War. By this point, The Third Reich was defeated, and the Imperial Japanese homeland was being bombed day and night from bases on Guam and Iwo Jima. So naturally, when an American B-29 Superfortress experienced an inflight emergency and was forced to land in the Soviet Union, the bomber was seized... which ended up getting copied to create the Tupolev Tu-4 "Bull".
I greatly appreciate all the KC-10 clips used. KC-10 often don't get enough attention when compared to KC-135s or KC-46s, even though they are better.
They are fun to fly in
Well, the SR-71 Blackbird was fueltight - at least the first few flights. The fuel dripping was caused because the sealent between the joints of the panels was not up to the task of dealing with movement and high temperatures. But the JP-7 was so inflammable that you even couldn't ignite it with a torch - startup and afterburners needed a shot of TEB (Triethylboran)... 😉
I love y’all’s military videos
Magnificent engineering.
My philosophy is simple, i see new video, i click.
thats actually good to know and not what i thought lol, nice one
i luv this man
Great video.
Loved the video, as an enthusiast I thought you hit most of the points. Most people would never consider the issue and you made it interesting. Yet I can’t get over “not what you think” part. Gonna assume you’ve talked to literally a million folks out there, how do assume any of them are thinking? Some are absolutely, just how do you know? I want your secret….
Thank Russ! We can tell you our secret, but then we’ll have to … mmm … you know 🤓
Kudos for not showing the actual explosion, and the lil disclaimer beforehand, much appreciated by at least one of your more sensitive viewers ❤
Me getting a handwritten letter* My wife showing up looking at me curiously* Me: wait, it's not what you think
I love that this channel is getting more recognition. It's one of the best channels in KZhead
Ah making me want to become an aeronautical engineer, love the science of flying
No! That's a common misconception about the Blackbird needing refuelling straight after takeoff, they could take off with a full fuel load but if they lost an engine they were in serious trouble, as they were under-powered below Mach 1. So they took off with reduced fuel load to save weight and refuelled in the air after take off. The fuel leaking on the ground was nothing that a few drip pans couldn't sort.
love your humor
2:08 Where did you find that footage?
Wing tanks also reduces wing loading. The reduction can be quite significant depending on the weight the weight of the aircraft vs the weight of the fuel. In the same way, wing mounted engines reduce wing loading, allowing for marginally weaker wings to be viable, allowing for some fuel savings
3:42 that crash has been burned into my memory for a long time, but so had no idea it was because of this.
Nice thanks for all these interesting videos
When I was playing KSP 2 the other day I had a fair amount of Flutter during flight which was very interesting.
5:18 nice pun LOL
"Pee is stored in the balls. Fuel is stored in the wings." -Master Oogway
Interesting firefighter dance at the end .
The Boeing 747 crash at Bagram AB wasn’t exactly caused by a shift in cargo weight. When the cargo shifted aft, it contacted the controls for the elevator . This froze the elevator in the last commanded position which was during initial takeoff. That angle was too steep for the 747 to maintain which led to the aircraft stalling. Data collected from the box on board showed the pilots fighting to push the nose down but the elevator was not responsive. Had the cargo shifted and the controls not been lost, the aircraft most likely would have been able to trim out the shift in weight.
My first intrusive thought was just "The fuel is stored in the balls."
Wow we’re getting treated this week!
Mon, Tue, Thu are *shorts* days. Fridays are *long* days!
@@NotWhatYouThink thanks!
"Or is it?" Oh no! Legendary boss word
Good video
"You heard it right! .... if you don't have hearing loss"😂
Базар жоқ! Күшті видео!
Seeing Malaysia Airlines 4:09 hits me hard remembering the mh370🥲
I'm still amazed by the fact the hollow space in the wings is enough for jet aircraft to travel thousands of kilometers before needing to refuel.
I laughed way too hard about that joke :P Nicely done!
Which one? 😜
@@NotWhatYouThink All of them :P
Regarding Balance of an aircraft: I forgot when it was. But in the USSR basically the entire leadership of the USSR pacific fleet was wiped out thanks to the same reason. The admirality flew from the pacific bases to Leningrad for a conference. Because some consumer goods were rare, they snacked up everything they could. Including two big paper rolls (for toiletpaper, which was a surprisingly rare commodity). With all that shit loaded into the flight home the pilot already said "That's too heavy, we will crash with that stuff in the aircraft". But Soviets being Soviets, especially the admirals that outranked the pilot, told him to shut up. They crashed seconds after take off.
Yeah saw that video
Please talk about INS Vikrant
Finally a normal video!!!😃🙂
If by “normal video” you mean a long horizontal video, we publish them every Friday 😉
6:25 this is interesting - aero elastic flutter
Narrator sounds like another wow channel I use to watch all the time. Oh nostalgia!
My father flew an F4 phantom. He was sitting on 3,000 gallons of JP-4. The plane was a flying fuel tank with massive jet engines. The aircraft lights on fire eject both seats or the backseater (attempt to bring the aircraft back). Might have some incorrect details.
I believe my dad once told me “If positive indication of fire exists: *EJECT, EJECT, EJECT!”* or something like that. Either way, if you’re on fire, you’re probably gonna bail out.
Never knew the A380 had trim tanks in the horizontal stabilizer, very interesting
When you look at the B-1B bomber, anything that is not cockpit or weapons bay is a pretty much a fuel tank. Of course they had small tanks they could install in the weapons bay to carry even more.
Can we please have another short accompanying video of that dashcam recording the 747 explosion?