Aircraft Fuel Bladder - Deciding on buying a new cell will depend on which part of the world you are based in. Nitrile rubber construction favors hot, humid locales while the EFC urethane cells will last the longest where its cool or cold.
If you let your aircraft sit a lot and don't keep tanks topped off, urethane would be the better choice. FFC ships an installation kit, including the all-important chafe tape for covering rivets and edges. He mentioned that an owner need not be concerned if the filler ring detaches from the bladder.
Aircraft Fuel Bladder
These rings are located with Pliobond and the actual seal is created when the gasket is installed and the filler neck screws are torqued. FFC does some custom work, but since 9/11, they no longer offer auxiliary fuel tanks for aircraft.
Flying Home Safely On A Shot Tank
Eagle will overhaul a fuel cell in three days or less. They clean, inspect and recertify in a day for $58. Prices are quoted individually, based on a shop rate of $58. A new tank for our Cessna 182 would cost $1000, including the install kit and all clamps and fittings. Eagle's warranty is seven years for new and five years for repaired, overhauled or clean and tested cells.
Failure of a tank begins at the top and works down, says Kevin Brewer, of Floats and Fuel Cells, based in Memphis, Tennessee, whom we recently visited. Brewer told us that because the top of the cell, which suffers from the sun's heat and dryness as fuel is used, begins to lose elasticity, harden and crack, sloughing off chunks of material.
EFC has the distinction of being the only manufacturer of urethane-based fuel cells. Trademarked Vithane, this synthetic rubber compound became popular in the late 1970s and has proven to be an excellent material for cells, particularly in colder climates.
Heat and humidity combine to cause revision in urethanes, meaning the material reverts back to a granular state. So a cell will last more than twice as long and much longer than nitrile if installed in an aircraft based in a cooler climate.
The company still makes a limited number of fuel cells for GA aircraft, including Beechcraft and the smaller single-engine Pipers and older twins. These are distributed through Eagle, in Wisconsin. Maintenance on EFC cells is provided by Reliance, Eagle and FFC, Inc.
Hartwig told us that whether synthetic, nitrile or butyl rubber, some variations need to be considered when performing a repair. If you replaced a cell during the 1990s, it could have been from one of a number of shops that were FAA approved, but produced less than perfect products.
Fortunately, these shops are long gone, but their work may not be. The assembly then goes into an autoclave for vulcanization curing. Later, the new bladder is filled with water, dissolving the cardboard for manual extraction.
Next, the cell is pressure tested. Before shipping, its dried and an oil film is applied. If you must delay installation, storing the new bladder in an environmentally controlled area is important to keep the oil fresh.
Watch out for older "new" bladders that have been stored for years. Both FFC and Eagle have a lot of tech info on their websites, including the history and chronology of cells in GA aircraft. Hartwig's test is for the owner to look at the color (turning white) and squeezing and twisting the bladder.
If it sounds like you are crumbling cornflakes, it may not be economically feasible to repair. The company has an extensive inventory of both new and rebuilt cells. The day before we visited, they shipped 43 units.
They will clean, inspect and certify a fuel cell for a minimum of $225. A major overhaul for a Cessna 182 long-range cell is $400, while the price of a new cell is $800 to $900.
Sales manager Kevin Brewer told us that about 50 per cent of FFC's sales are repair/overhauls. Started by Jack Krug in 1967, Aero Tech Services was an FAA bladder Repair Station for the first eight years of its existence and began manufacturing fuel bladders in 1975. Their bladders are of nitrile-based nylon in a coated two-layer construction.
The company has done custom work for Lockheed and the U.S. Army, coming under stringent Mil-Spec regulations. Of the three, we would say the bladder system has definite advantages, since its easily repairable, lasts as long as 50 years and is considered relatively fire safe in a crash.
The military and commercial operators seem to think so, too, since they stick with bladders. One supplier for all your fuel system needs. Meggitt has decades of experience in designing and manufacturing fuel system components for aircraft and helicopters, civil and military.
By combining our extensive product range, we can provide you with a fully integrated system. Hartwig is the one heavy player in the fuel cell business who does not manufacture cells. This Canadian company has been strictly in the repair business since 1952. Albert R. "Butch" Hartwig runs this nine-person company started by his father and he takes the low-key approach to business.
They have one set price: $55 to clean, inspect and certify. After that, all repairs and overhauls are billed at $40 per hour U.S., plus parts, ensuring that the owner only pays for what he needs to have done.
However smart you are, you can't repair a fuel bladder in the field. Butch Hartwig has been in the business for over 30 years and has seen all manner of botched repairs, from silicone slobbered on leaks to two pieces of tire rubber bolted together with large washers through a hole punched in the bladder.
Before removing any fuel cell, West Air will be sure to check all the areas of possible leaks. We'll open the inspection plates and follow the wet fuel or fuel-stained areas. Our goal is to confirm that the fuel is due to a leaking bladder and not from over-filling or from fuel lines and valves.
Our ballistically-resistant fuel bladders will self-seal in less than two minutes. The wound is sealed using our proprietary treatment which stops fuel leakage almost immediately. This technology provides protection for a wide range of threats, up to 23mm HEI (High Explosive Incendiary).
Before receiving their PMA, Eagle made thousands of cells for Warbirds and Experimentals, including off road, racing and watercraft. The company holds 51 PMAs covering all Cessna and Piper singles and older twins. Eagle is a distributor for Engineered Fabrics Corp.
and an OEM producer for Piper and Raytheon. If these are unavailable, they will sell their own new production PMA cells. They are set up to repair all nitrile and urethane cells. Eagle bases repairs on actual work, not a flat rate.
They can give estimates over the phone, based on a few questions, however the actual estimate can only be quoted after they receive a bladder and evaluate its condition. If you need a complete overhaul, new is always a good choice and the warranties are better.
But an overhauled cell is virtually a new cell, using your old filler rings and stays, and will cost about half the price of a new one. It may not have the same warranty, but it will probably last as long as new.
Out-of-stock products can ship in about 48 hours, unless they are an obscure party. Hartwig told us that an overhauled fuel cell is basically a new cell made with the hardware from the older cell. The company has never been interested in manufacturing simply because Hartwig believes the market is well served in this arena and there is a place for a repairs-only facility.
Hartwig also sells the popular and effective Monarch fuel caps for Cessnas, having purchased the business from the original designer. Today, Meggitt's crash-resistant, self-sealing fuel tanks have stopped fuel spillage and reduced fire-related death and injury in such crashes to almost zero – that's one recorded death from a post-crash impact fire since the early 1970s.
FFC manufactures nitrile-based bladders, using vulcanization to seal all of the components. They have been building bladders since 1977 and have a total of 218 approved parts, all of which are GA, except for about a dozen military and commercial bladders.
They build standard, crashproof and self-sealing fuel cells. FFC Inc. is a large company with four operations around the country. Their Memphis facility is a manufacturing and repair center for GA aircraft bladders. The float part, by the way, denotes their inflatable life-raft-style floats for helicopters.
An aggressive supplier, they try to ship same day and can build or overhaul a cell in about 12 hours. Being located in the shadow of Fed Ex's giant Memphis hub, FFC can ship up until 11 p.m.
Fuel systems for GA aircraft are sometimes simple, sometimes not. The both-tanks-gravity-feed system shared by most Cessnas is as simple as it gets, but older Aerostars and some twin Cessnas are about the worst. The actual fuel tanks can be one of three types: Rigid, bladder or wet wing.
Bladders also called cells are constructed of two or more layers of rubberized material, the inner layer a non-porous container for fuels, the outer layer a more durable material for protection against chafing, heat and humidity.
The fabric layers are either nitrile rubber or a urethane-based material called Vithane. Nitriles are manufactured using heat-cured vulcanization, while the urethane bladders are cemented together. Urethane is manufactured by only one company, Engineered Fabrics Corp., formerly Goodyear.
For repair work, they will clean, inspect and repair for $120 or overhaul for $450 maximum. A new bladder for our sample Cessna 182 was quoted at $850, however their Website catalog listed it at over $1000.
ATS's Danielle Murphy told us that they try to apply some sort of discount on every sale. Aero Tech does custom work for ferry tanks, off-road vehicles and marine applications. They hold PMAs for a number of parts they manufacture in-house, plus several STCs.
30 years ago, we launched our long-life, lightweight bladder fuel cells based on polyurethane technology. Maintenance-free, with inner liners that do not dry out and become fatally brittle when empty for extended periods, these fuel tanks are flexible and withstand the stresses and strains of take-off and landing.
Some of these are still in service today. When you call a manufacturer for a new bladder, they'll ask for data on your old cell. Aircraft serial numbers arent as helpful as you might think as manufacturing often changes during a production run.
Ideally, you should send your old bladder for a match. The company then constructs an exact duplicate of the fuel cell out of cardboard and paper tape. They will note nipple and access holes and then start laying up the cloth and rubber, lapping seams to create a tight unit.
Bladders begin failing the moment fuel is added for the first time. The additives in aviation and automotive fuels contain volatile chemicals that leach out the polymers in rubber or urethane. This degradation, which itself may take 50 or more years to render the bladder unusable, accelerates when the tanks have less than full fuel or if the aircraft is outdoors in hot, dry climates.
Aftermarket additives may further degrade the bladder material. Eagle Fuel Cells is the new kid on the block when it comes to manufacturing, but the family has been repairing fuel cells for 45 years and was a dealer for OEM and aftermarket cells before entering production.
For more than five decades, active and dedicated aircraft owners and pilots have turned to AVIATION CONSUMER to answer their most important buying questions. This website contains many older reviews. Unless otherwise noted, these reviews carry product pricing from the time of the original review.
replace a tired old fuel bladder, of which there are many in the field. Frankly, we hadn't visited this topic recently and a cursory look revealed that the reader had a point. Clearly, the subject is worthy of further examination.
Worth noting is that many airplanes in the fleet still have their original bladders and some in the industry believe the rate of bladder failure is accelerating. In nearly 32 years, the company has learned that what the customer wants above all else are stocked parts and competitive pricing.
To meet the initial demand, they have more than 600 bladders in inventory ready to ship. If its not in stock, they can ship in seven to 10 days. When Cessna began having water problems because of wrinkles in the bladders in the 1980s, EFC offered fixes.
But Cessna, so the story goes, ignored them in favor of an AD, so EFC quit selling to them and Cessna went to a wet wing almost exclusively throughout their piston and propjet line.
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