turboplanner

Turbo was moved to tears at this note from his dear friend Cappy. With the greatest of respect, Turbo points out that it wasn't him, although he is quite capable of it, but a Great Uncle, the son of Wilhemina Turbine . Wil, as she was known used to shoot off with Annie Oakley. His father was Jonathan Jones who carried a big knife like Davey Crockett and was the only survivor of the Alamo, who was saved by climbing up a chimney when the Alamo was overrun by Mexican immigrants.

...........prominent assets. Turbine Jones, grabbed him by the leg, threw him out of the train's path, and kicked the fireman in the aXXX. The fireman responded by throwing a lump of coal at Turbine Jones, hitting him in the cods. In one fluid action, Turbine Jones swung up into the guards van, kicked the air brakes on, and swung out in an arc, landing lightly on the verandah of the Lone Star Hotel.............

One of them was a Horwood Bagshaw saw engine so not a race car built by amateurs running methanol. Most of the others were not race cars built by amateurs running methanol. Do you really think an engine turning backwards backfires as a result? It's worthwhile doing some reading about what causes backfires. It's also relatively easy to take fire prevention measures with the system and that's worth a read also.

If you don't understand the principle, you can just read along; I know it's hard for some to understand it's the engine we are talking about, not the car.

The potential for fire is not about K&N filters in particular; just any air filters which use oil impregnation and have no flame shielding. We do know about it; I've personally seen about a dozen over the years. In cars on the ground there's no real problem. I've seen fires snuffed out with fire extinguishers, bags and in one case hand-fulls of sand by half a dozen people.

What would make an installed carburettor catch fire? Back firing is usually due to maintenance errors, and incorrect throttle use, turning the ignition on, and off when running. The old 1920s cars had manual distributor advance-retard and hoons would build up to speed then pull on full retard and back off the throttle and the engine would backfire until advanced again. In an aircraft you only ever need to have one backfire. It's how lucky you feel I guess.

Methanol/Acetone and Carb. You can also get a backfire with Injected. The "belching flames" were not relevant. When the backfire occurs, it lights up whatever type of fuel has soaked into K&H type filters and lights up the impregnated oil the filter material, causing a vertical fire if stationary, or wherever the wind flow sends it.

Just to clarify what I witnessed. A backfire lit one of the air filters. Four side by side filters caught fire and the fuel/oil mixture fed a fire that was 2 metres high. A person was trapped by a faulty harness, her head about half a metre in front of the tyre. A fire truck was there in seconds and one team started cutting the harness and the other put out the fire. It took some minutes to fire-out and person-out. Since we always have a problem unless an example is given exactly in and aircraft, think of this. If the same filter, even the same part number filter is located in the engine compartment of a recreational aircraft, fuel and materials will be the same so the fire volume will be the same, but this time that two metres of flame is going to have to find a way of escaping, and if you are taxying or flying, that's likely to be in the pilot's direction. I know the origins of these engines, where the rider could depart immediately, so fire would not be an issue, so I would be making a slight change, but it's up to the reader to do whatever he/she likes.

Unfortunately, sometimes on here we may be dealing with the same person writing under several aliases. I'm not talking about you FH. I don't mind because some of the material is good. However some people don't know when to stop and have no idea of engineering or mechanics, so a lot of important safety information just gets blown down the gutter and lessons are lost.

Not if you're smart enough not to use motorbike/stationary engine filters in an aircraft. Easy to get away on the ground.

No they are not spark arrestors. Anyone can induce a backfire; if this happens on the ground you could lose your aircraft; if this happens in the air you could lose your life. I gave you first hand evidence of a flame, a steady flame where a fire truck had to snuff out the steady flame. There are air intake filters and air intake filters, and intake filters that are going to be sitting in an engine bay. The designer needs to select the safe filter and safe installation.

Just a little comment about cone air filters; the flame height from a backfire is a steady 2 metres high in still air. I've seen one go up.

........hooked on clientele. However Cappy, like Albo, had failed to read the room. The Columbians in the streets, fed up with being trampled on and murdered by the drug lords had had a gutfull. They'd thought Donnie Trumpidad was going to save them, but they'd been landed with another would-be drug lord who was also chasing their women. They labelled him Captain Cooked, held protest meetings every Sunday, and the word soon reached Don who was busy trying to colonise Russia. He was irritated .........

.....and perhaps in doing this they lost some power output by pumping hot air into the cylinders. There is an overall balance with peripherals.

..........and the long suffering Venezuelans adored his fairness. Bull, ever the loyal Friend, installed Cappy as President of Columbia, the first of the South American cards he expected to fall. Some now say this was a mistake, others a stroke of Genius. President Don, who had totally shut down Venezuela's cocaine flow into the US by blowing up every boatload everywhere, everyday, was perplexed that Columbia's drug lords didn't seem to be sending anything any more. President Bull charged Cappy with discovering the pipeline and shutting it down. Without a smirk Cappy put on the Jungle Greens, and started walking. From his days on the Khyber he knew it was useless sitting around ; you had to get out there and look and listen. By a million to one chance after crossing the Rio Upundanidad, he heard a steady thumping sound and crept closer. Some NES readers may be old enough to have been told of their grandmother shopping at the older grocery stores, where you walked up to a counter and a little man with a pencil behind his ear walked around putting groceries in an orange case. The little man would add all the prices up and with a flourish put the money and the docket in a glass jar, and jam the jar in an overhead pipeline. He'd pull a rope and there'd be a "POOF" and the jar would shoot to the centre of the room where the owner would check everything, put a farthing's change in the glass jar and after another "POOF" the little man would put his hand up, catch the jar, give the farthing to the shopper and carry the orange case out to the boot of the car, and give the windscreen a wipe with a rag hanging out of his grey coat. Cappy realised he was listening to balls of cocaine being shot by compressed air under the sea to Hangar at Miami International Airport, where it was shipped out as Smiths Chips by 747 all over the lower 48 and .............