X-Virus-Scanned: clean according to Sophos on Logan.com Return-Path: Received: from [65.33.163.227] (account marv@lancaironline.net) by logan.com (CommuniGate Pro WebUser 4.3c5) with HTTP id 945241 for lml@lancaironline.net; Sun, 15 May 2005 20:34:22 -0400 From: "Marvin Kaye" Subject: Re: [LML] Re: crash safety To: lml X-Mailer: CommuniGate Pro WebUser Interface v.4.3c5 Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 20:34:22 -0400 Message-ID: In-Reply-To: <002801c5597a$8b290290$6401a8c0@axs> References: <002801c5597a$8b290290$6401a8c0@axs> X-Priority: 3 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"; format="flowed" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Posted for "terrence o'neill" : Colyn, Good questions. . Re the wings, I was thinking solenoids or ? for quick shutoffs, firmly attached at the wing root would help keep sprayed fuel out of the fuselage.. Another idea was to try to blow the wing fuel out a dump door, but any gyrations in flight would defeat that idea. It would be a lot easier to stuff foam into the wing tank areas. .. and protect and foam-baffle the header tank. Someone invented spongy but fuel-proof foam for that purpose ... I had a link about 5 years ago, and was going to do that to our Dragonfly main tank under the seat, but they wouldn't sell except to major corps, and shortly thereafter we sold the Dragonfly and bought the Lancair project last year. I'm hoping foam nowadays no longer needs replacement. I have bever fouond water in the Dragonfly's plastic tanks, in 5 years. I'll ask ATL about water entrapment, and how permanent the currently used foam is, and report back. What's your offline e-mail address? Mine's troneill@charter.net Terrence """ Terrence, I'm interested in pursuing this. I actually have an aux tank built by fuelsafe which has foarm in it to manage flammability. However, one of the other mailing list members commented that foarm makes it difficult to purge the water from a tank. So that is one issue with foam. I'd like to know more about your check valve idea. I have a IVP which is probably a different problem than a 320 so my comments below reflect that. I have noted that most Lancair's that crash also burn enthusiastically but I don't know what the mechanism is. I would guess: 1) fuel lines rupture at the wing root. Do you have a solution for that? Seems like you would need a remote valve. 2) fuel tank (wing) breaks and spills. Foarm would help here but how do you replace it every 10 years? ...and deal with the water. bladder inside wing would be problematic given the replacement problem and in the IV the number of ribs and spars that cut through the tank area. Colyn Case """