Turbine D,
A good recount of the physics of titanium fires. Thank you. It takes something serious to make the stuff burn and once it's going, forget the built in fire extinguisher.
I would take issue with one of your statements,
Originally Posted by Turbine D
is why there are no magnesium gearboxes on jet engines provided to the Navy for carrier operations.
It's not just the fire risk, it's the way it reacts with salt. Generally, the salt wins. You are right that magnesium and titanium fires can't be extinguished with water. Pour water onto a magnesium fire and it aggressively reacts with it, releasing hydrogen, which then causes an even more energetic reaction. If you deprive it of all sources of O2, magnesium reacts with nitrogen - hence the need for noble gasses to suppress it.
But the intensity of titanium and magnesium fires are, as you have suggested, very energetic, release lots of heat.
Originally Posted by Turbine D
The phenomena of a titanium fire involves subjecting a titanium part to a temperature above 1,600ºC (2912℉) and within 4 to 20 seconds a white hot fire starts which reaches a temperature of 3,300ºC (5972℉). The energy destroys surrounding materials by burning and melting.
And that's interesting when you consider Sandiego's point about the state of the airframe after the fire.
Originally Posted by Sandiego
the fire did not spread to the rest of the aircraft, and all we would normally see is a burnt out blob in the rough outline of a F-35 on the runway. I seem to recall she was about to fly, so would likely have had a good amount of fuel aboard.
And
the logs books are full of ramp fires for many aircraft types, and it often results in a total burn out- not a partially burnt aircraft still sitting on it's gear.
Please excuse me for paraphrasing you, Sandiego.