Originally Posted by
Prangster
As a humble cog working at the mighty Rolls Royce Flight Test Establishment at Hucknall I saw at first hand my colleagues despair at never ever being able to fully overcome the top engine drip feeding fuel onto the bottom engine thus causing numerous fires. Even our deputy chief test pilot had to bang out near Grantham when delivering an aircraft back to the MU
The sealant, 'Viton' , to seal the fire floor was pretty rubbish. The only thing it seemed to stick to was your hands and clothes. On a major you pretty much had to reseal the whole fire floor. You would find old sealant peeling away and some hard, brittle and breaking up. The sealant took for ever to cure. At Leconfield they built an aluminium shed affair to go over the engine bay and blew hot air up the tailpipe to try and help the cure. It was like a sauna to work in if you had to reseal any parts that were still leaking.