FIRES IN AIRCRAFT

Opotiki News, Volume II, Issue 246, 13 October 1939, Page 4

FIRES IN AIRCRAFT

NEW EXT I X G UJ SHER R.A.F. ’ STANDARD DEVICE DUE! TO CAR CRASH The British Air Ministry has adopted for the. R.A.F. a device designed to prevent or to put out fire in an aeroplane. The Ministry recently authorised: an announcement stating that this contrivance i.s being fitted as standard in R.A.F. aircraft. It was a motor, not a flying crash which Jed to the invention and development of tlie device now officially adopted for aircraft. After a near relative had been involved in a .motor car accident accompanied by lire, Captain H. 54. Salmend, a retired naval officer, bent his energies to the solution of the problem. He pi educed a safety switch to work automatically in a car or aeroplane (rash. I ts. mechanism was based! on pendulum action working on gravity in the case of'overturning, and on inertia in the case of impact. This provided for the cutting off of the ignition, and lighting circuits immediately and automatically, so that there could-be no sparking and no exhaust flames. The. pendulum action i.s so regulated that humps on had roads 01* violent braking do not effect it. For aircraft the movement i.s restricted .soi that the mechanism only operates in the event of a crash or overturn. Acrobatic movements do not affect it. The invention operates almost instantaneously— -~ •In the event el a crush. If the machine turns over on landing. In outbreak of lire in the air or on the ground. if the pilot proses a button switch when he sees that, a crash is iminiuont. A Xe\v Act Ministry requirement for new type civil aircraft, specifies compulsory equipment of approved types of fire extinguisher. For a fourengined air liner the cost of the minimum equipment (non-automatic) is LI2O -Is. That of the fully automatic equipment, as used in the R.A.F., is L 129 19s.