David O wrote in message . ..
(Dan DeLong) wrote:

Even so, the statement is not entirely accurate.

David O -- http://www.AirplaneZone.com


As for the LOX vent at Oshkosh 2002, that was something to see. I
think it was you I questioned afterward and you said it really was not
dangerous without some sort of fuel to burn. You (or whomever) said
you had once purposely put a lit cigarette into the O2 cloud -- the
cigarette burned quite rapidly and that was the extent of the effect.

Putting a lighted cigarette into a LOX tank vent plume would have been
a serious safety violation and we would not have done that. We *have*
done some flammability tests by holding small samples in a GOX plume
with tongs, gloves, and a fire extinguisher standing by. None of the
tests included a cigarette, but I expect the results would have been
as you described.

You may be recalling something that a crusty old engineer demonstrated
for me back in 1974 in the Life Support Lab at Westinghouse. He
started the lesson with "Don't you try this..." and proceeded to light
a cigarette. He then drew a lungful of oxygen from a mask on an
emergency medical bottle by the swimming pool, put the cigarette in
his mouth and slowly exhaled through it. The end of the cigarette got
really bright and it burned its full length in the one exhalation. I
would guess the gas he exhaled was about 60% oxygen because of mixing
with the residual gas in his lungs.

Saw your photos. Nice. I miss living in the homebuilt world, but my
job just takes too much time, and working on my Defiant is too much
like my day job now; it's not relaxing. And my tools are on loan to
XCOR.

Dan DeLong


David O -- http://www.AirplaneZone.com