The next consideration is the space available in which to install the valve. That is pretty self explanatory so I won’t dwell on it except to say that in addition to the valve itself, a mechanical valve will have numerous elbows and such sticking out of it and those will probably have aluminum fuel lines running to them which require even more room. All that has to be allowed for.

The accessibility of the valve by the fuel lines has to be considered. FAR part 23 does not allow for low places in fuel lines unless a drain is provided in that low place. That is one reason Gascolators are always placed in the low point of a fuel system. A fuel line with a dip in it can accumulate water and/or trash that can cause serious problems. Even if you find an acceptable location for the valve which the pilot can access easily, can you get the fuel lines there without dips? While we’re talking about fuel lines, you should look into the cost of just the AN fittings and fuel line to plumb up the 4 tanks in the Glass Goose to the valve. You may also want to consider the complexity of properly bending and running all those aluminum lines to the places they all have to go. It takes a LOT of time to make it look neat and you will waste at least some tubing redoing them until you get the hang of it. Also a tubing bender is a must.

Well, so now you have found a place that is actually accessible to place the fuel selector valve, and there is enough room for the valve and all the fittings and plumbing, and you have determined that you can route the lines with no

Usually at this point, the really hardheaded folks start trying to come up with any way they can to still be able to use the mechanical valve and that’s OK up to a point. But the only way they can usually figure out to do this is to make the plane a three-tank plane instead of a 4-tank plane! Maybe you want to do the same? Well, just the explanation of the valves themselves is getting to be quite lengthy and I have gone into a great deal of detail as to why the Glass Goose NEEDS to have a 4 tank arrangement in previous newsletters and I am just not going to go into that again here just to try to get people to listen to reason. If you want to go off on that tangent, go ahead. You will just be compounding the bad choice you made to go with the manual fuel valve in the first place by now limiting the use of your fuel tanks, and complicating and making more problematic your water operations.

So now that I have you all fired up to figure out just how to make the manual selector valves work in spite of all my ravings, you might want to try to think "outside the box" and open up you thinking to at least consider what I have to say about the option of using electric solenoid valves instead of the manual valve (or valves)? 

There are small, lightweight electric solenoid fuel selector valves that are available at very reasonable cost in the automotive after market. These valves are made of a fiberglass reinforced nylon material that is impervious to all fuels encountered by aircraft. They are extremely simple in design and offer very little in the way of anything to fail. They have 2 inlets and one outlet. They will also serve in systems that require a return line to the fuel tank such as automotive fuel injection systems. The