From: N295VV@aol.com
Message-ID: <e4.d324808.27467ef3@aol.com>
Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 07:30:43 EST
Subject: Re: Foam in wing tanks
To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
Reply-To: lancair.list@olsusa.com
Mime-Version: 1.0

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I think there are many more places to spend your time making your plane safer 
than putting foam in gas tanks.

The Lancair wing is a very strong structure, and if you hit hard enough to 
rupture the gas tank, you have probably already expired from impact on your 
body, so the aftermath is only a footnote in your obit.

Additionally,  with the types of doors in our planes, which make it difficult 
to exit if the plane is upside down,  even a small leak of gas from  foamed 
tanks will probably be fatal.

Of the fatalities listed for the LIV on  the government site,  I believe only 
one was due to fire, and that was caused by using Aluminum fittings on the 
oil lines instead of steel fittings.  (You have used steel fittings, haven't 
you?).  It was an oil fire, not a gas fire.

I would be worried about foam in my tanks degrading and plugging my injectors 
at some future time.  The government planes that use foam do have some huge 
inline filters  to prevent this, don't they?  What filters will you use?

I have been badly burned in an explosion at my work place,  and I have also 
been in a  plane crash where the fuel tanks were ruptured with a fire.  I 
would spend my time figuring out how to get the door open quickly.....

David Jones

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