alex Loc: michigan now imperial beach californa

they had about seven different planes, there were two different Cessnas, stinsons another old military bi-plane a little smaller than a stinson, a thrush turbine engine an ag tractor with a radial engine and an ag cat another bi-plane I would suppose they all had different sized tanks some of them were built as dusters others were modified for the job

boofhead

I admit I got the math wrong. Most of my life I have flown outside of the US and used either imperial gallons or liters for volume. An imperial gallon of water is 10 pounds. I did get the weight right for avgas though, don't I get credit for that?

I haven't done cropdusting but from what I have seen they don't put chemicals in rubber tanks. To hold that much liquid (and the sg varies depending on the chemicals used), I will give you a total weight of the tank and chemicals of 3500 pounds if you like but that is still 150 percent of the total allowed weight of the airplane at takeoff. The usual allowance for overload under the regulations is 10 percent which means the maximum weight at takeoff for that airplane is 2250 or so.

A 400 gallon tank would have to be 8 feet by 3 feet by 2.5 feet in volume and there is no way it would fit into an L-5 or any small airplane even if it was rubber.

I know the professionals are the ones who will actually fly such an airplane and we are just theorizing all I want to get over to you is that you (and I) need facts before judging.

Just trying to help.