PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Piston Plane Refueled with Jet Fuel Kills Pilot
Old 15th Mar 2015, 14:56
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cockney steve
 
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It would be interesting to know if any research has been done, on the combustibility of Avgas/Jet mixes.
Years ago, it was common for boats to start on petrol and switch to paraffin, (Morris Vedette was a very popular one in the 50's/60's)- once the engine was warm.....now, I would guess that carb heat could be used to keep the mixture warm -enough to "burn 'n turn".
I have only handled a couple of car misfuels....road-diesel is ,IIRC, 35 second burning-oil, whereas Kerosene/Paraffin/ jet A1/ (Avtur?) is more the 28sec. mark. IE much thinner and more readily atomised. the other complication, isa the fact that Avgas and petrol are markedly different and MOGAS is not the same as pump-petrol either!
What I can confirm, is a warm car engine will continue to run on a 50/50 Diesel/petrol mix....The exhaust will cloud -out thick white smelly smoke and power is much reduced, but better than none at all!

The above applies to carburetted engines, the modern, fuel-injected electronically- controlled stuff may well not be as tolerant.
Perhaps a TMG would be a good test-bed?...A really old car, of course, had manual mixture adjustment, as well as an advance-retard for the spark.

I can now claim over 50 years of motoring-experience and have not misfuelled....YET! (and served a goodly few thousand gallons of petrol, Derv and Paraffin, during that time.)

I would imagine the symptoms in a SEP would be similar to those of icing.....so, full carb. heat...but would leaning or richening be the best bet to keep the Donk running?.....this *could* be someone's "get out of jail " card.
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