Sight Glass + Fuel Tank in cockpit = Bad Mix?

Yesterday I had the visit of a neighbor pilot, just back from Sun'n Fun. While I was telling him about my mulling of the Gas Tank option and that I was concern about getting a good seal around the sight glass, he told me the following scare he had in his aerobatic Christen Eagle a few years ago:
He was flying with a passenger in the front seat about 13 miles from RDU. His passenger told him he was smelling gas and shortly after he too started smelling gas. Then the passenger told him he was seeing gas dripping at his feet just under where the gas tank is located in the Eagle. He called an emergency, cut all power leaving only ignition and started climbing, waiting for the engine to starve at any time and trying to get enough altitude to glide to RDU. He managed to land on runway 23 with the fire trucks waiting... very, very soft landing! By this time 6 gallons of gas had dumped on the floor of the cockpit. There was a crack in the sight glass of the gas tank. He later found out that there was an AD for the Pitts which is the certified version of the Eagle. This AD required to change the sight glass every 4 years - his was 20 years old and as the Eagle is Experimental this AD had been missed by the previous owner.
This enlightening story led me to decide to build the tank rather than buy the pre-built tank. Although this might seem counter intuitive, here is what I think:
- There is no way to predict if a problem similar to the Pitts' AD will happen on the RV-12. Likely VANs was careful choosing the plastic use for the sight glass and the way it is fastened. However the oldest -12s have 2 years of flying and are not that many.
- In case problems arise in the future I will be in better shape taking care of the fix if I built the tank myself.
- I might well, as several -12 builders have already done, decide not to wait for a problem to close the sight glass window and put a mechanical level sensor. Here again having built the tank will make things easier.
Conclusion: I will order my finishing kit without the prebuilt tank option.

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