Was the tiller the joystick style? If so, fun fact, the AFMS required two pilots for that airplane!

The brain is a mysterious thing! I haven’t flown a Beech 1900 in almost 30 years, but I remember the fuel load as being 3200 lbs, MGTOW on the C model was 16,600 lbs while the D was 16,950… how the hell do I recall that and yet I can’t even remember a trip I flew last week?

Garrets on a stick

Two bladed skill saw

Found these in some paperwork I got with my IIIB

The only experience I have with a Merlin is fuel leaks. If you buy one go get a lot of 5 gal buckets

I only worked on a few Merlins but did dozens of fuel boost pump pan repairs to Metros. Always thought it interesting that the Maintenance Manual had criteria for acceptable fuel leaks.

I think there were four classes for leaks, and only the most serious required fixing it now. The puddle(s) on the hangar floor were very casually timed and measured, so to fall within limits to address at the next convenient C check.

ComAir had a lot of Metros then, and that’s where I met and worked alongside “Fuel Leak Charlie”. I called him Catfish Charlie because every morning he had a well groomed handlebar mustache that by end of day was fractured/frayed and all splayed out, and had a mess of PR1440 sealant “berries” in it. He’d use MEK to clean up before we went to Applebees.

I think Fairchild and Swearingen must have shared him, sending him around the world to fix fuel leaks. I’d never do that over, but a great experience and learned a lot.

My MM for my Citation has the same and also categorizes fuel leaks as to severity and treatment. The guidance was:

Slow seep: monitor every 10 hours, allowed indefinitely if it doesn't get worse.
Seep: monitor before every flight, repair within 100 hours.
Heavy seep: flight may be made to repair station, repair before further flight
Running leak: repair before further flight.

The criteria for the leak was to wipe it down and then see how big or drippy the leak was after 6 minutes. More than 4 drops per minute was "running leak".

My plane leaked badly from inspection panels after I bought it. I replaced a number of them with newer style with better seals, used petrolatum on them, and torque them very precisely to the numbers and in the pattern in the MM, and the leaks all stopped.

Since that time, I had a phase 5 inspection which opened a bunch of them up again and is notorious for causes new leaks afterward. We carefully tracked where each panel came from, and what orientation it was in. We stored them very carefully not to have the seals dry out or be kinked by something resting on top of them. We put all the panels back, again with a fresh coat of petrolatum and the right torque and pattern.

No leaks.

I don't know much about the Merlin fuel tanks, but my guess is that a great deal of the problem is people who don't take the care and time to service them correctly. When a leak does occur, people tend to tighten the panel screws and this usually makes it worse since that increases the panel bow between screws.

There is a plane type (Falcon?) which has an entire lower wing skin held in by screws that comes off during a heavy check. I'm told it is nearly impossible to keep it from leaking. So it could be worse!

Mike C.

When I had the turbo commander 690B never had a leak or even a thought about a leak.
One benefit of the rubber bladders I guess.
Some of you have questioned the 22 bladder design of the 690. In my experience as an owner, I never once had an issue with the tanks. The Merlin III across the taxiway was always seeping.
I have a C525 now and chasing minor seeps is part of the deal in the citation world.

As long as the Commander fuel tanks aren’t disturbed, they hold up really well. But, when the periodic spar inspections were being done, leaks and replacing bladders was common.

22 of those suckers if I remember correctly. (been a long time)

Downside is extra weight, rubber eventually degrades and needs replacing (I did 4 bladders on a Comanche once, no fun), and bladders have various insidious failure modes like collapsing and water entrapment.

I prefer wet wings. Really no choice when you get into turbines as the fuel quantity is really hard to manage with bladders. The 690 does use bladders, but a huge number and a lot of plumbing connecting them all. That's pushing the concept too far.


I'm not having that problem with my 10,000 hour Citation V after I did the initial fix.

Mike C.

The Metro/Merlin leaks have nothing to do with servicing them. You can service them all you want, and after one hard landing they will be back. We started running light fuel loads in one as a test and it helped, until the next hard-ish landing.

The Metro/Merlin leaks have nothing to do with servicing them. You can service them all you want, and after one hard landing they will be back. We started running light fuel loads in one as a test and it helped, until the next hard-ish landing.

I've only heard about them!

I've only heard about them!

All of the 226's and 227's had 648 gallons (4342lbs @ standard conditions) useable available when they left San Antonio. However, some of them went to Europe. European rules football (and a few other countries) required "limiting" the useable fuel as not to be able to exceed GW @ BOW plus Full Fuel. Many of the 226's and "non-16K" 227's had the fuel caps moved inboard one wing/rib bay thereby limiting useable fuel to approximately 550 gallons/3685lbs. Some of these aircraft found their way back to the US and had the filler caps moved back to the 648 gallon position. Either way, the Metro/Merlin series is one of the few airplanes that I have ever flown/own/and operate that has "enough" fuel; after all, the only time you have too much fuel is when you are on fire..................

Funny enough, there have been at least two Merlins that had the "dry bay" areas sealed and used for additional useable fuel to aid in the long-distance pursuit of "international" under-the-radar commerce.

By the way, the "Merlin 300" is just a IIIC with winglets (either one is an SA227TT) with the option of factory Freon. Also, most were 13,230 GW, but not all. A 12.5K Merlin 300 with freon will have a useful load of 3,500lbs-it can hold 4342 lbs of fuel. I have owned the last "short" airplane built (sn TT541A) and it was a straight IIIC. Of the 10 227TT's that were delivered as Merlin 300's, all were a product of marketing after final production.

The 226/227 Series were all designed with an original intended GW of 14K. Arbitrary government regulation created the published limitations.