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From: "Michael Burke" <mburke@southernphone.com.au>
To: "Rotary motors in aircraft" <flyrotary@lancaironline.net>
Subject: RE: [FlyRotary] Fire extinguishers
Date: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 19:30:11 +1000
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> John, here is the manufacturer's link:
> http://www.sea-fire.com/p1.htm
> The one I was talking about is the smallest FM-200 series.

I wonder if they'd cope with our airflow. I'm wondering if the stuff would
just fly out the back with all the other air and achieve nothing.
John

Gentlemen,
If I may add my ten cents worth.
Fighting fires is something I know a little bit about, especially gas fires.
Fighting an engine fire especially, in an aircraft is extremely difficult,
because you may not know what the cause of the fire is. The two golden rules
in fire fighting is,
 (1) cool the source, ie broken exhaust pipe, shut off engine, burning
cables, shut off master switch, broken fuel line, shut off the control
valve. May sound obvious, but do you want to shut off an engine that's
running perfectly?.
(2) Remove the air (oxygen) source to the fire. Easier said than done, but
this is where your dry powder and halon system works to exclude the oxygen
from the fire. But they will not work effectively if there is a fresh supply
of air to the engine compartment.
Therefore the ability to be able to control the air flow into the cowling is
paramount. You cannot have a fire without air, and secondly the fire
suppressant medium will remain much longer in the cowling thereby helping to
prevent a re-ignition. While halon will do an excellent job in putting the
fire out, the only way to keep the fire out is to keep the air out, as much
as possible anyway until hot metal cools down.
Michael.
Australia


Michael Burke