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Old 23rd Dec 2015, 11:17
  #14 (permalink)  
SASless
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: Downeast
Age: 75
Posts: 18,307
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The best way to compare the value of the Crashworthy Systems is to compare them to the Non-Crashworthy systems in the same aircraft when that is possible.

I know commonsense is a rare commodity today once you introduce Bureaucracy into the discussion but all it takes for me is see the spilled fuel flowing across the Car Park with a small fire within the Airframe.....to be followed by the raging fireball that results when the two come together to form the huge fire.

My generation of combat helicopter pilots died in post impact fires until the US Army embraced the notion of crashworthy fuel cells in the UH-1 Huey.

I got to visit the Camp Zama Army Hospital Burn Ward myself and saw first hand the results of such incidents. Fortunately for me it was a short rather mild experience. I got there due to a cockpit fire caused by pressurized hydraulic fluid and anti-aircraft ground fire getting together at a bad place and time.

Although for different reasons, my exposure to a real fire while flying a helicopter made me a convert to the importance of any effort that reduces the chance of a fire.
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