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Old 14th May 2004, 20:07
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A-FLOOR
 
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I was once told that a departing Boeing 747 in a monsoon soaks up a volume of water about the size of your average olympic swimming pool.

And nope, no particle separators here. Just continuous ignition.

In dry conditions, jet engines "diesel" along without needing a spark to ignite the mixture, but once the air has some water in it the continuous ignition comes on and the engine basically runs like your average gasoline car engine, with added sparks from big spark plugs in the conbustion chambers, operating continuously to prevent a potential flame-out from water ingestion.

The only aircraft turbine engines that use particle separators are on turboprop aircraft that operate in less-than-ideal conditions, like the Cessna Caravan.
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