Cessna 172LR (Long Range) – External Fuel Tanks Inside the Floats! v1.0
Have you ever thought while flying the amphibious Cessna 172, “I wonder if you could put some extra fuel in those pontoons to increase the range of this thing.” Well, the answer to that question is now “yes.”
Yes, this is a fictitious mod, but I tried to make it as realistic as possible. I’ll explain below.
I give you the Cessna 172LR (Long Range)
The highlights:
Double the fuel capacity of the standard C172! (56 gallons in the main tanks, 56 gallons in the external pontoon tanks)
Double the range! (1100 nm)
Only a little bit slower! (Cruising speed ~110-118 kts)
Basically, I added two external fuel tanks, physically situated (via the flight model config file) where the floats really are, in order to give realistic fight characteristics. Based on the actual measurements from the manufacturer of the floats on the C172 in MSFS (Wipaire/Wipline), 28 gallons is nowhere near the maximum volume of fuel that could conceivably fit inside the forward section each of the floats, so even completely loaded down, you would still have plenty of buoyancy.
All of this extra weight from the fuel presented a problem for the tiny powerplant and airframe loads that the Cessna 172 can handle. So I went looking for a real-world solution and found a basis for one:
The company who makes the floats, Wipaire/Wipline, offers a modification service for the Cessna 182 (yes I know this mod is for a C172 but stick with me) called the BOSS182, which is an engine swap, port, polish, and tune to give a 48% increase in horsepower and a 37% increase in MTOW. I applied these percentage increases to power and MTOW for the C172 to bring the power and usable load up to where they need to be to handle the increased weight from the extra fuel.
Still working on the fuel gauge for the float tanks. It’s there on the G1000, but it doesn’t work yet.
Are you ready to fly a long way at a leisurely pace? Upgrade your Amphibious Cessna 172 to a C172LR today!
