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Have you had a fire in your plane?

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"A fire in the air can spoil your whole day" There are a couple of episodes in E K Gann's book "Fate is the Hunter" that deal with his experiences.
 
Ferrying a Twin Comanche from Florida to California. At Houston it grew dark enough to turn on panel, position and strobes, and across desolate West Texas I smelled what seemed like chaff from cut wheat. Then it became like smoke smell from a forest fire, but I couldn't see brush burning anywhere, and then I smelled an acrid smell of an electrical fire. Uh oh!
I turned off the master switch and the smell dissipated so minutes later I turned the master back on, all systems off except one NavCom, and I contacted ATC (which had me on flight following) and notified the problem and that I was continuing without radio contact. El Paso was 120 miles away with a glimmer on the horizon so when I was on descent I turned the master and NavCom back on, they gave me an immediate clearance, I lowered the gear just fine, turned the master off again, and had an uneventful landing.
The next morning I trouble shot the system and found that the post lights have wires with a plastic sleeve over them, and one had rubbed against a screw head in the panel which had (in 4,000 hours) penetrated the plastic sleeve and chose that flight to arc and start a plastic fire.
Thanks for sharing!
 
Turns out my landing light controller burned up, it was charred black. I don't know if there were any flames but I didn't see any evidence of any around it.

I experienced a similar electrical issue while flying an older C-152 VFR from Ohio to Oklahoma. I was over the hills of western Missouri when the acrid smell of a melting electrical wire caught my attention. First thing was to turn off all electrics. Second was to look for a place to land below me in the event flames occured (I was flying only 2500 ft agl). Thankfully, the smell depleted. I had another 30 minutes or so to the nearest airport. Since VFR, I did not need to use radios or anything electrical but decided to troubleshoot. Electrical systems in C-152's are pretty basic. Reviewing what switches I had on, the highest current draw that I had on was the landing light. I routinely fly with the light on as a recognition light item, especially when hazy or reduced visibility situations. Sure enough, once I turned the light back on the smell returned. Upon landing, I found the landing light wire insulation was "soft" underneath the panel. There was corrosion on the switch wire connection and it was loose, which I surmised as having created high resistance and heat. The switch itself may have failed internally as well. The remaining trip with the light off was without issue. I will tell you, I recall having watched war movies that depicted fires in the cockpit. That initial fear and imagery came to mind when I smelled and saw the smoke. It can be quiet discerning and stressful. Train to keep your wits about you and think things through.
 
One thing that can make it less harrowing is the proper choice of attire when flying. WW II pilots basically wore leather and cotton clothing and had gloves and goggles that could resist heat as well as cold. That may not be practical for us, but you might want to avoid synthetic fabrics that melt and tennis shoes that don't resist heat well. Shorts are riskier than full pants/slacks. These guidelines are helpful in allowing for less injury in the air and for evacuation on the ground, even for commercial flying.
 
One thing that can make it less harrowing is the proper choice of attire when flying. WW II pilots basically wore leather and cotton clothing and had gloves and goggles that could resist heat as well as cold. That may not be practical for us, but you might want to avoid synthetic fabrics that melt and tennis shoes that don't resist heat well. Shorts are riskier than full pants/slacks. These guidelines are helpful in allowing for less injury in the air and for evacuation on the ground, even for commercial flying.
Very good advice! If you've ever been in the burn unit watching them pick balls of synthetic fabric that melted into the patients skin, you'll never wear synthetics anywhere that might expose you to fire again! I might wear shorts (Florida), but they are cotton, my socks are cotton, my shirt is cotton. Tennis shoes - yea, I wear them, but I think about it every time.

Mark
 
Nearly had one.....see attached pictures.

The aircraft is a Piper PA46-Jetprop. For those who aren't familiar this is a stock piston PA46 that is STC'd by Rocket Engineering in Spokane, Washington State. The piston engine is removed and replaced with a PT6 - in our case a PT6A-35. The best aircraft I have ever owned - built for 310HP and now had just shy of 570 SHP. Just crazy performance....

For those who maybe haven't flown a PA46 the CB panels are on the L hand sidewall by the P1 position. There are two banks of CB's - an upper half and a lower half.

Well - flying along one day we started to get this kind of gentle 'fried insulation' smell. No smoke, no fire - just a smell. And not that much of it either - and it went away. Then it came back on another flight and I just started to get a bit concerned. So when we got home we unscrewed the top CB panel and took a look behind. Yikes....

The large cables you see are the main power supply cables from the battery master solenoid all the aircraft systems. They are held on to the bus bar by one screw - the crosshead screw you can see. This had come loose over time and had created a high resistance environment.

The bus bar handles all electrical systems (bar the starter generator) and there are a lot of electrical systems on a PA46 - including the windshield heating (20 amps) the prop and inlet lip heating, etc, etc. The starter-generator can push out 200 amps and with everything turned on then one can see 80 amps plus on the displays.

Not good.

This had to be totally rebuilt and needed quite a few new CB's that had cooked themselves.

Paul

N921GG - Busbar 2.jpg
 

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Wow. Poor arrangement. They should have extended the bus bar and made the heavy current bolted connection directly to it.
 

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