51–60 of 139 posts
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I might add that lighting a fire under a gas engine that likely has leaks and drips is a pretty ballsy thing to do.
It’s rare to have an engine that just drips fuel. Lubrication oil for sure, but straight up petrol leaks for a non-running engine require a lot of things to be wrong.
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Usually done for big rigs, diesels not gas engines.
Airplane engines are gas!
And yes, some airplane engines use gas but the majority of them runs something that in constituency is closer to regular diesel than to gas.
Kersone is #1 diesel!
AV gas is another matter entirely but I'm not aware of any jet that would use it, though that might be a fun thing, and given that turbines can run on almost anything combustible it will probably work to some extent but I don't think it will be a happy ending unless the engine is really designed for it.
Btw, this is an interesting start-up: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESdHyNtHpqs not cold weather but I'd hate to fly that in any conditions.
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Airplane engines are gas!
I didn't have airplane engines in mind when I wrote that (tanks = vehicles) but given the thread context and your airplanes reference I see how that could happen, same thing with 'block heaters' elsewhere in the thread, I take it that is in the context of other vehicles (heavy equipment, tractor-trailers, buses and so on). And yes, some airplane engines use gas but the majority of them runs something that in constitu…
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Usually done for big rigs, diesels not gas engines.
Airplane engines are gas!
Sure, small ones with piston engines. Sure. Most anything running a turbine uses Jet-A which is closer to kerosene / diesel than gasoline.
If you're leaking fuel you've got bigger problems than how to safely heat up the engine.
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It’s rare to have an engine that just drips fuel. Lubrication oil for sure, but straight up petrol leaks for a non-running engine require a lot of things to be wrong.
Or an sr-71
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The only thing that a 3rd+ engine helps with in this context is uncorrelated engine failures. (Correlated ones - like "oops we used the wrong fuel units" or "that volcanic ash cloud sure is pretty" - are the same for two engines as they are for 4) These failures are really, really rare. A very conservative approximation would be one in 100,000 flights. (That would be once every other day in the US, for reference. Lik…
Except this ignores that the motivation was not increased safety but money. It does seem true that twin-engine planes can be quite safe but if Boeing/Airbus were motivated to create the safest possible plane, it would probably have four engines. I doubt the US President will be flying on a twin-engine plane any time soon. They'll choose the safest (American made) option. Probably an updated 747 model, no?
They also fly on Marine One (helicopter) which is probably less safe overall than any modern airliner.
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Airplane engines are gas!
Airplane engines are gas! Sure, small ones with piston engines. Sure. Most anything running a turbine uses Jet-A which is closer to kerosene / diesel than gasoline. If you're leaking fuel you've got bigger problems than how to safely heat up the engine.
(There were some, late in the war, but only just. Otherwise, all aircraft were piston-driven, running avgas, a/k/a petrol / gasoline.)
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Or an sr-71
hey at least they decided not to use hypergolic fuel in the sr-71 tho having a jet that was on fire all the time would be pretty bad ass looking. Titanium would probbably handle it and it'd eventually warm up the skin and close the gaps.
Afterburner light-ups were limited by the availability of TEB aboard.
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I might get some of the backstory halfway off, but my grandfather was in Alaska during WWII for the construction of the Alaska Highway. They tried to never turn off truck and equipment engines because if you did, you had to build a fire under them to get them warm enough to start again.
My family was stationed near London for a time. My father told me later that once an airline pilot mistook a WW2 strip for the Heathrow runway (!) and landed there, using every inch of it to get it to stop. The strip was too short to take off from, so what to do? They stripped everything off the airplane they could. Seats, interiors, galleys, everything. They put in just enough fuel to hop over the trees to Heathrow.…
The interesting thing is that „the end of the runway“ is actually a major river.
And a Vuelling flight almost made the same mistake two years ago (but today it would be less critical as they have extended the runway to accommodate A380s some time ago).
I'm going to bet those GE Aviation technicians that they charter anywhere to fix planes are unbelievably talented, experienced and well paid. I bet they've got all the best stories. Also: on the first page, second paragraph of the special coverage, what does "Check Airman" mean?
"Check Airman" -- likely a 3rd pilot in the cockpit, probably for observation/rating. Since this is a 9+ hour ETOPS* flight (over-ocean), there should be at least 4 pilots on board anyways. Airline ground flight ops will also get involved. * ETOPS: Extended-range Twin-engine Operational Performance Standards; jokingly referred to as "Engines Turn Or Passengers Swim"
They check out other pilots and write procedures.