Doug C
Senior Heliman
Location: Northern CA
| I am the other half of that flaming experience, after the startup, as the turbine spun up we started hearing popping noises from the exhaust and spurts of flame, and could see flame inside the exhaust and second stage vane area, Mike shut it down and we had a bit of fire under the turbine, turns out it was the heat shield wrap around the section that separates the engine from the second stage that was burning, the flame from that took out the propane line that runs under the turbine near the front,( the flame was "piped" into that area by the presence of the canopy, not by the amount of fire)
We think we may have had excess kero after the previous run that had seeped through the hole that the egt sensor sits in, into the heat wrap.
Question, is it necessary for the sensor to be mounted at the underside rather then the top of the system, same question holds for the lines as the enter the front of the fod screen into the engine. I guess what I am asking is , is the Wren sensitive to where "top" or "Bottom" is, is there a "up" to the thing? |
It's an AMA requirement. I've had to put out a grass fire when starting up in the middle of a dry summer.
Also make sure it's a CO2, nothing else or you will destroy the engine.
... I have it all "fixed" now, new lines and such... though I think I will still fab up some stainless steel hard-lines and wrap them in heat shield material, looks nicer and short of total disaster, should hold up for a very long time.
