I don't have a better story, but thanks for this one! Though I know the
"story" about a lot of deadstick landings caused by "dead ignition system" -
I did never figure out the WHY to the tail!

Thanks,

Thomas J.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Ernest Christley" <echristley@nc.rr.com>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 06, 2005 8:33 AM
Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: Another great flying day = another day of
troubleshooting


> Finn Lassen wrote:
>
> > Hmm... and here I thought that vacumn was a better insulator than air
...
> > Why is the air pumped out of lightbulbs?
> >
> This had me confused for a long time to, Finn.  The way it was explained
> to me is that a VACUUM would be a better insulator. But you don't have a
> vacuum, you have a thin atmosphere.  To basically short out, enough air
> molecules have to get ionized to form an alternate path to ground.  In
> thick sea-level air, there are so many molecules competing for the
> limited ionizing energy and so many non-ionized molecules getting in the
> way that the charge is released in the cylinder before an alternate path
> can be formed.  In the rarified air at altitudes, the fewer molecules
> take charge quicker and  are much nimbler so that the alternate path
> beats the spark plug.
>
> If anyone has a better story, I'm willing to listen.
>
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