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Message
Thinking of fire makes me glad I built a
pusher.
John
Hi
John,
There is certainly some
benefit to having the fire behind you, but it's also been mentioned that you
will have less warning. As always, it's a tradeoff.
I have to believe that
there are in-flight fire suppression systems that would probably work, but I'm
not sure how feasible it is for us to install them. They would certainly
work on the ground, and in flight, you could limit your airspeed prior to firing
it, though I'm not sure that's in the overall best interest of flight safety
unless you're sure it will put the fire out.
As others have
mentioned, you need to be able to shut down all the flammable stuff.
You also need to take care and not use materials that will support
combustion. It's too bad that fiberglass makes such a good cowling,
because it's the number one source of combustible material on the other
side of the firewall.
Next, you need to make
your firewall as good as it can be. It would also be wise to extend
the stainless to other areas that might be subject to flames. In my case,
I'm VERY glad I put stainless on the belly, over the muffler, because that's
where the fire was when my oil cooler blew. Even as I added the
material, I remembered an RV-8 guy who blew a jug, and had flames burn through
the floor of the plane just behind the
firewall.
My plan for a major fire
is the parachute. Unfortunately, I don't always wear it, as was the
case when my oil cooler burst. The second plan is to get down
NOW. I was probably high enough to have made it back to my home airfield,
but as soon as I saw the smoke, and smelled the oil burning, I pulled the
throttle to idle, and nosed it over to near Vne descent. I "should" have
also turned off the fuel at that point, but I didn't want to shut down the
engine when it was still running. That was a mistake that I will hopefully
never repeat, because as long as the engine was still running, the oil
was still pumping out onto the exhaust. In my case, the fire seemed to go
out either from the cooling effect of 200 mph of wind, or from the oil
running out, and having nothing else to burn.
Being trapped
temporarily in an overturned plane is what worries me more than in-flight fire,
and that's what I recently purchased a small Halon extinguisher
for. I hope I never get to use it.
Gotta go to a conf call
zzzzzz.
Cheers,
Rusty (may have a buyer
for the RV-3 in it's entirety)
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