High wing fuel tank drain valve.

[Jerry B]

Would fitting a simple fuel tank drain valve be classed as safety improvement, and be fee less?

It does "address known airworthiness issues" i.e. water in fuel, plane fall out of sky.

"Examples of what might be considered appropriate are modifications that
address known airworthiness issues, an innovative new method of carb ice prevention or a
change that significantly reduces the exhaust noise. Examples of what wouldn’t generally be
considered appropriate are applications to fit strobe lights, landing lights or a different propeller
(unless it’s of a radical new design)"

Opinions please.

[Brian Hope]

To be honest, if I needed to fit something that I thought was possibly going to reduce the chances of me ending up in a field, the last thing I'd be worrying about was whether I had to pay LAA a mod fee.
My aircraft has two tanks, and like many designs, does not have fuel tank drains, it relies on the gascolator drain, which is fitted on the lowest point in the fuel system at the bottom of the firewall. Do you have any reason to believe any water in your tank is not finding its way down to the gascolator? It would be worth discussing the issue with your inspector, and owners of the same make/model of aircraft to see what they think.

[Kevin Dilks]

As most tanks dont pick fuel up from the extream bottom this allows water to collect , now if the "unuseable fuel " is mainly water evemtually it could all flow to the gascolater ( during a rough flight, low fuel level etc) and fill it to the point that the engine only gets water..............
Draining the water fromthe tanks on pre flight gets rid of it and also reduces chances of tank corrosion and fuel pump propblems so I say yes to drains,. My old Aeroprackt A20r had no drains and I changed that and it proved to be worth the hassel.

[ROB THOMASSON]

I fittedd three Curtis valves to my Auster at rebuild as previously she had only removeable wire locked bolts! The snag with the wing ones as Ken correctly predicted is you can catch your head on them! However as I've never found water from any of them I can't say if the gascolator would catch anthing from the tanks