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Answer :
Hi Alissa,
All airplanes with engines have an oil tank. Some, like the low horsepower Continental engines built for light planes, have the oil tank attached to the bottom of the engine.
Other airplanes, like EAA's big Boeing B-17 bomber, have large radial engines which need a lot of oil, so they have oil tanks which are attached to the engine with hoses.
Jet engines also have oil tanks, since oil is needed to lubricate the bearings inside the jet engine.
For airplane piston engines that are air cooled, the engine oil also acts as a coolant, and having lots of oil to help get rid of the heat is important. For the engines on the B-17, each engine oil tank can hold 37 gallons of oil! The little Continental engine oil tank can hold about six quarts, about the same as a family car.
For airshow airplanes, they have a second tank full of oil. This special oil is used to make airshow smoke. The special airshow oil, called Corvus oil, is fed into the engine's hot exhaust system, where it burns in the very hot exhaust gases coming out of the engine. The white smoke that comes out makes it easy to see the path the airplane has flown. The oil is different than regular oil (it's much lighter in weight) and that's why it needs to be kept in a different tank.
H.G. Frautschy |
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