Aviation Trivia: Why are airplane fuel tanks in the wings?

 To fly a large airplane, need a lot of fuel.

When boarding an airplane, if you are watching the plane near the boarding gate, you may see the plane refueling from the wing root area.

This may seem surprising, but the fuel tanks of passenger planes are located in the wings.

In some cases, fuel tanks are located in the fuselage or tail, but as a general rule, they are located in the main wings.

At first glance, it may seem that not much fuel can fit in the wings, but a large aircraft can carry several hundred drums of fuel in its wings, or about 1,000 drums of fuel in a jumbo jet! The wing can hold several hundred drums of fuel, or about 1,000 jumbo jets.

So why carry fuel in the wings? Airplanes are very heavy aircraft, especially the fuselage, which carries a lot of weight, including passengers and cargo. During flight, the fuselage naturally tries to go down, pulled by gravity.

The wings, however, do the opposite, exerting upward force to lift the aircraft. The lighter the wing is, the greater the burden on the wing root.

Therefore, fuel, which accounts for about 40% of the total weight of the fuselage, is loaded in the wings to maintain balance between the fuselage and the wings.

Nevertheless, the main wings are quite flexed during flight. One might be concerned that the fuel tank might be damaged, but of course, the design takes that bending into account, so there is no need to worry.

The way the fuel in the tanks depletes is also designed to maintain the strength of the area around the base of the main wings and to maintain the fuselage's center of gravity.

Based on various calculations, large airplanes are able to fly.