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I saw a Glasair that had an oil fire just after departure. The tower
called him and told him that he was smoking. He made an immediate 180 and landed the opposite direction. He said that the Fire Dept was hosing him down as he was still rolling. He said that total flight time was only 2 or 3 minutes. His firewall was aluminum / fiberfrax / fiberglass covered rohacell. The aluminum must have melted almost immediately, this allowed the fiberfrax to move away from the fiberglass covered rohacell. The fire then burned through fiberglass/rohacell and entered the right side of the cockpit, good thing he didn't have a passenger. Glasairs have their fuel tank in the forward section of the wing. The fire now starts burning his into his wing fuel tank. Only one layer of fiberglass separated the fire from fuel when the Fire Dept had it put out. After seeing this I decided to go with stainless. If you have a fire at altitude you'll sure wish you had not used aluminum. The extra one or two pounds of a better metal may save your life. Russell Sherwood Houston TX "Flyhighdave" wrote in message ... I'm building a Barracuda-!/4in. plywood firewall. What is the best material for the fire barrier? .16 stainless or .16 2024 T-3 with a layer of 1/8in. fiberfrax sandwiched between the aluminum & the plywood? I'd like to go with the aluminum because of weight if it & the fiberfrax are an appropriate combination. Are there any other materials I should be considering? Thanks! David |
#2
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To whoever is thinking about the wt. of the firewall,You might want to
hear what happened to me a few years ago.I fly an Ercoupe with the original 5 gal. header tank up front,and whil flying along the shoreline of Ct. one night,I began smelling what smelled like wood burning.No big deal I thought because it was summer and I was only at 2000ft.and had both windows down and I could see people on the beach with fires going and thought that they were cooking hotdogs and such.It smelled kind of good to me actually,until I saw the small flames coming from the floor of the plane.I was alone so I steeped on the flame with my rt. fot to try to keep it down while I got the fire exh.from the baggage area.As fate would have it,the small push button on the exh. fell off and onto the floor somewhere and I could not find it in the dark.I declared an emerg.at hvn.and headed for it.I was able to keep the fire at bay by steeping on it every few secs.I got close to the airport and while on final,I cut the eng. off and glided down.After the fire dept. finished,I found out that my exh.had broken and the eng. was blowing the hot gasses directly onto the firewall and that had ignited the wood floorboards causing the flames.It could have easily blown up the tank but I was lucky.The exh. only had about 250 hrs.on it since new and I had done a good preflight.I said all this so that you might make a wiser decision on your choice of metal and where to put it.Good luck,Jim |
#3
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I have a fair quantity of Fiberfrax--1/2" "durablanket"---see ad in
rec.aviation ,marketplace. James Lloyd wrote: To whoever is thinking about the wt. of the firewall,You might want to hear what happened to me a few years ago.I fly an Ercoupe with the original 5 gal. header tank up front,and whil flying along the shoreline of Ct. one night,I began smelling what smelled like wood burning.No big deal I thought because it was summer and I was only at 2000ft.and had both windows down and I could see people on the beach with fires going and thought that they were cooking hotdogs and such.It smelled kind of good to me actually,until I saw the small flames coming from the floor of the plane.I was alone so I steeped on the flame with my rt. fot to try to keep it down while I got the fire exh.from the baggage area.As fate would have it,the small push button on the exh. fell off and onto the floor somewhere and I could not find it in the dark.I declared an emerg.at hvn.and headed for it.I was able to keep the fire at bay by steeping on it every few secs.I got close to the airport and while on final,I cut the eng. off and glided down.After the fire dept. finished,I found out that my exh.had broken and the eng. was blowing the hot gasses directly onto the firewall and that had ignited the wood floorboards causing the flames.It could have easily blown up the tank but I was lucky.The exh. only had about 250 hrs.on it since new and I had done a good preflight.I said all this so that you might make a wiser decision on your choice of metal and where to put it.Good luck,Jim |
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Jerry,I think that I bought some from you already,Now you know why I
did.thanks,Jim in Ct. |
#5
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Yeah, Thanks Jim, but how else can I tell others who need some ?
James Lloyd wrote: Jerry,I think that I bought some from you already,Now you know why I did.thanks,Jim in Ct. |
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