You raise the 64 dollar question, Chris. For fifty years the USAF and RAF have been flying up to FL600 and higher, to my knowledge, not one a/c has been lost to Fuel ICE. That in the days when jet fuel was.... well, ask Pinkman, it was crap.
With the benefits of metallurgucal, refining, electronic and systems progress, we now worry all of a sudden about 'mysterious' effects of water at altitude? Give me a ----ing break. The 'clog' in a heat exchanger brought down a 200 million dollar a/c ?
Any Lear owner knows to add a little Pristtm, but fuel monkeys and Pilots can't be bothered to sump a big rig ? "It's Frozen, wouldn't do any good."
Right then, 777bravosierra ready on the Right. Oooh, chemical mysteries, tubesheet maladies, Amoebic slurries, micro nucleated crystalline cascades disrupted by non-cadent thrust demands............what a bunch of Bull-ess. Does Dr. Fuelinstein not really know ? Or is he just too embarrassed to say ? What does a sump exercise cost ? Mr. Beanie knows. How many add up to 200 million dollars and the possibility of the need for 200+ caskets ?
Edit: USN as well as outfits listed above, sorry
Last edited by Will Fraser; 3rd Aug 2009 at 22:33.