Firewall

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

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

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

Jerry,I think that I bought some from you already,Now you know why I
did.thanks,Jim in Ct.

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.