OT: Sad day in aviation: Collings B17 has crashed

[RB211]

I'm changing my hypothesis to unknown. Only way for this to happen is gradual loss of power on all engines. Water in the fuel?
I will edit my previous posts, this is why you don't speculate like I did.

[danlb]

The initial eyewitness interview was with a man who watched it take off. He said that as it gained altitude black smoke and then flames came from the inboard engine on the right side of the plane.

What causes an engine fire like that?

Dan

[RB211]

The initial eyewitness interview was with a man who watched it take off. He said that as it gained altitude black smoke and then flames came from the inboard engine on the right side of the plane.

What causes an engine fire like that?

Dan

Exhaust collector ring burning out?

[PStechPaul]

Black smoke sounds like it may have thrown a rod through a piston and it was burning oil. Could the engines have lost lubrication and started to seize? Is there a common oil system that could have failed?

[Doc Nickel]

It's a warbird. It has multiple separate and redundant systems specifically to let it keep going after battle damage.

I believe- again, not aeronautical expert- that the only thing "common" between the two engines on a given wing is the fuel tank. And even then, I wouldn't be surprised if each wing doesn't have two separate fuel cells.

I'm pretty sure there's multiple connections and pumps- including last ditch manual pumps- so that multiple tanks can be connected/transferred, mainly for keeping the aircraft in trim.

This was a "flightseeing" tour, right? What's the chances somebody's phone or digital camera survived? At least enough to salvage the data.

Doc.

[Doc Nickel]

An engine seizing would be an issue, but again, it's a warbird- it's designed to be able to fly with one or more engines out. The prop should be able to be "feathered" so it doesn't provide excess drag, but even that's mainly an issue of fuel efficiency- that is, how far the plane can fly on a given fuel load. Even if the engine stalled completely, and the prop could not be feathered, the aircraft should still have been controllable.

Again, no expert, but I have read a little.

Doc.

[RB211]

An engine seizing would be an issue, but again, it's a warbird- it's designed to be able to fly with one or more engines out. The prop should be able to be "feathered" so it doesn't provide excess drag, but even that's mainly an issue of fuel efficiency- that is, how far the plane can fly on a given fuel load. Even if the engine stalled completely, and the prop could not be feathered, the aircraft should still have been controllable.

Again, no expert, but I have read a little.

Doc.

Depends on the airplane, props windmilling, or seized and not feathered can be a significant source of drag. A friend of mine that flew Saab 340's said that it would bring his airplane down if he couldn't feather. 12,000 lbs of drag on one wing.

[Ringo]

The initial eyewitness interview was with a man who watched it take off. He said that as it gained altitude black smoke and then flames came from the inboard engine on the right side of the plane.

What causes an engine fire like that?

Dan

jet fuel trying to run in a gas engine???

[A.K. Boomer]

Black smoke sounds like it may have thrown a rod through a piston and it was burning oil. Could the engines have lost lubrication and started to seize? Is there a common oil system that could have failed?

Black is fuel - blue is oil - white is coolant (which it does not have)

all these planes DO leave a black trail when in rate of climb for two reasons, first off the plane is consuming lots of extra rich fuel mixture and due to the relatively low speed when climbing out they will leave a trail, I do not know the details - was he just seeing this or an immense amount from just one engine... ???

There is no common oil system that they all share - that would be making the craft very vulnerable --- one of the main strengths of a plane like this is to keep all systems separate --- hard to do with fuel in some cases though...


Would a weening in of Jet fuel into the mixture as it was climbing out create allot of black smoke ? absolutely - even water in the fuel might due to incomplete combustion and it just dumping raw fuel into the header system...

[A.K. Boomer]

The torsional effects that a running engine exerts on an air frame is something else to consider when losing an engine so close to ground and not having the blades immediately feather, and the abruptness at which the engine fails is part of that equation,,, having an engine that goes from positive torsion to immense negative and having it do it "on a dime" would definitely take some immediate leveling adjustments, the positioning of the failing engine on the wing is a factor also as in inboard or more outboard...

I don't think this was the particular issue here as it sounds like they had stabilized their flight but just came up short - just some food for thought...

[J Tiers]

Depends on the airplane, props windmilling, or seized and not feathered can be a significant source of drag. A friend of mine that flew Saab 340's said that it would bring his airplane down if he couldn't feather. 12,000 lbs of drag on one wing.

With it way out on one wing, the yaw force if not feathered would be a factor, not sure the reports support that.

Preliminary reports do not support JetA in the fuelbased on checks of the fuel that remained, but the A/C does have a number of fuel tanks, and fuel might have been contaminated in one and not others, if just one was topped up before flight. it does not seem to take much JetA to really make the fuel foul up. JetA has no octane rating.

It may take only a minute or so of heavy knocking to destroy an engine. Power problems on multiple engines suggest a common factor, and fuel is a logical one.

.

[RB211]

One of my colleagues says JetA burns with black smoke, 100LL burns with grey smoke...

[Optics Curmudgeon]

Be patient, real information might be coming sooner than you would think. The flight engineer survived the crash.

[J Tiers]

One of my colleagues says JetA burns with black smoke, 100LL burns with grey smoke...

Makes sense, it has longer chain molecules, and they might not fully react in open burning. Gasoline is shorter chain molecules and probably burns more completely.

However, in an actual fire, there are other materials burning, and they may contribute smoke of a different color to the fuel load. Cloth, plastics, wiring insulation, rubber, etc, etc.

[Ringo]

here is some video of the site. i can only see 2 engines in the remains. 1 engine is feathered, 1 on top of the deice tank. where is the other 2?
the right wing is consumed in the fire, only ash remnants of the spars lying between the canvas quanset hut and metal building.
looking at the ash remains of right wing, is anyone saying they got post fuel samples from that?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIjWv0lcLz0