Regs & Equipment cooling
Gcca Mar 2010 released a NPA for the Carriage of Dangerous Goods on aircraft tightening the rules & checks. Kudos to them for recognizing the gap, Just bad timing.
As to the smoke in cockpit, yes the Air supply is from a differing source than that supplied to the cargo areas. However the equipment cooling for the flight deck instruments has 17 possible modes of operation some of which use FWD cargo air for cooling of the Flight deck displays & panels. That would be my suspect
The QRH has the equip cooling go to Override to enter mode ensuring air is not being dram from the fwd cargo area and is then dumped overboard by the smoke override valve. This would by my choice of suspect for smoke entering the cockpit from the cargo areas. No override . Possible smoke entry. The 3 source of possible air for the Equip cooling to the Flight Deck are Mix manifold air / Fwd Cargo / & reverse flow draw thru by differential pressure with smoke override valve open
Link FAA video of a Laptop Lithium Fire. Note that cooling, not oxygen deprivation is the only way to prevent thermal runawayhttp://www.fire.tc.faa.gov/2007Confe...tingVideo1.wmv
Last edited by avspook; 17th Sep 2010 at 19:20.