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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
LML website: http://www.olsusa.com/Users/Mkaye/maillist.html
LML Builders' Bookstore: http://www.buildersbooks.com/lancair
Please send your photos and drawings to marvkaye@olsusa.com.
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