On Sun, 23 Nov 2003 20:14:13 -0500, David O
wrote:

:"Marc J. Zeitlin" wrote:
:
:There have been many accidents, incidents, and crashes of VE's, LE's,
:Velocity's and COZY's over the past 20 years. I have never heard of an
:injury caused by the engine coming through the firewall, nor have I ever
:heard of a case of the engine coming through the firewall.
:
:Remember, if you've caused enough of a G load for the engine to push the
:mount through the firewall, you've already turned the passengers to jelly.
:
:I think there are a lot more important things to worry about.
:
:Agreed. I chuckled when I read similar concerns voiced elsewhere
:recently. In a properly designed pusher, such as a VE or LE , it is a
:non-issue. Yes, there have been fatalities in VEs and LEs where the
:engine has come through but those were in crashes in which the impact
:angle and speed was such that the occupants were dead whether the
:engine came through or not. And no, in the VE and LE there is no
:weight penalty incurred in "beefing up" the aft fuselage structure to
revent the engine coming through as suggested (although somewhat more
:generally) elsewhere.

I've seen fatal Long EZ accidents - and a Berkut accident - where the
engine was still attached to the firewall and spar, but there wasn't
much fuselage left in front of the spar. I've also seen a fatal LE
accident where the engine separated on impact with water and went up
(probably inverted impact) but the fuse mostly held. Any direct,
forward impact, such that the velocity vector of the engine is through
the fuselage, great enough to break the engine mount and destroy the
spar, is going to completely disintegrate the fuselage.

OTOH, Misha Kasyan's Berkut tumbled, broke off the nose, both wings,
canard, landing gear and about 1/4 of the mainspar and strake, and
ended up inverted. The engine mount was intact, I don't even think it
bent.