Aviator90 Episode 44

[intro music]

Chris Palmer: [0:31] Welcome to another episode of Aviator90 from Angle of
Attack. This time, I’ll be discussing engine fires and what exactly
you need to do in this situation. This is a very critical
situation. It’s very dangerous, and it requires one of the more
aggressive maneuvers that you would have to do during an emergency.
[0:53] So let’s dive right in, and I will show you exactly how this
looks and how you should handle this situation if it presents
itself. It’s very important that this is handled quickly and with
authority. So let’s dive right in and check it out. So obviously,
an engine fire isn’t just going to happen when you know it’s going
to happen. It’s going to be something that comes very suddenly, and
you need to know exactly what to do.

[1:23] Now, our first priority is to get that fire out. An engine
fire means that there is probably fuel burning up there or
something else. It also probably means that your engine is
destroyed and no longer reliable. So that means we are going to
have to also make, more than likely, an off airport landing.

[1:44] All right, there’s the fire. Pull power, pull mixture. Now
you are going to dive to the red line of the airspeed. All the way
to the red line to try to put out that fire. The rushing air is the
best thing to put out the fire. Keep diving right at that red line,
keep that red line and try to get that fire out as soon as
possible.

[2:06] All right, the fire is out now. We can pull up and we can
recover a bit. I can even balloon and use that air speed to climb a
little bit. I’m going to close the vents here so I’m not getting
anymore of that bad air from up front. The side window is open for
ventilation. All right, we climbed a little bit, that helps. And
now I turned off the fuel, so no more fuel will go to the engine.

[2:31] I see an airport off to the right, but I really don’t think
I can make that airport. So I am going to land straight ahead on
the beach. I think that’s the safest bet here. It’s kind of
tempting to go over there because it looks like it would be close,
but I think it would be too close. So straight ahead, here we go.

[2:56] We want to turn off our master switch as well. The last
thing we’ll do before that is put down the flaps, which you heard.
And I also turned off the master switch, so we are a glider now.
Engine is stopped. Everything is stopped. Now we are going to do
our best to land softly on the beach here, or wherever else you
decide to land. Restarting the engine is definitely not recommended
because it started a fire for a very good reason, and you don’t
want to restart that and make things worse.

[3:32] So that’s about it. You’ve got to push over to the red line
of the airspeed and really get that air rushing past the aircraft
in order to put out that fire, very essential that you do that.
Also essential, you cut the mixture and also turn off the fuel. You
also want to make sure that the people in your cabin are
comfortable with the air in the cabin, because it can get pretty
smoky in there. And then, you perform an emergency landing.

[4:04] So that is an engine fire, in a nutshell. Certainly
something that no one ever wants to face. That is quite a
dangerous, scary situation. But there is a way to try and handle
that. So we did a good job today, we got it done. And that is it
for this episode. This is actually the last lesson. But I want to
discuss, in the next episode, episode 45, some things about what is
next. So I’d love for you guys to tune into that. Until next time,
throttle on.

Transcription by CastingWords