fuel tank plumbing

C. G. Taylor, also the designer of the Cub, must have been thinking
about
those steep climbs in a Taylorcraft when he designed the ram-air
tubes on
the wing tanks because they are bent more than 90 degrees downward so
they
face directly into the slipstream during a steep climb.

The down angle is to keep rain out. The airflow will be parallel
to the top of the wing in any attitude except full stall.

On the subject of a small header tank in addition to a fuselage tank,
that
sure does sound a little like Rube Goldberg to me. It must a device
to cure
a history of fuel starvation, something I have never heard of in a
simple
system like the Taylorcraft's. OTOH,maybe there's a good reason for
it.

Some airplanes had tiny header tanks to increase usable fuel.
In a slip or steep nose-down glide (especially with flaps on some
aircraft) the fuel moves away from the tank outlet and the engine might
starve if the tanks are low. The small header is intended to keep the
engine supplied while in that attitude. The Glastar had a retrofit kit
of two small headers to overcome the starvation problem, since the very
effective flaps resluted in a rather large unusable fuel quantity,
limiting range.
Other airplanes use two tank outlets, one front and another
rear, plumbed together. Citabria is a good example.

Dan