Actually a cheap fire extinguisher will probably destroy your airplane. The
dry chemical is extremely corrosive and insurance companies will total the
plane rather than pay big bucks attempting to have it removed

"Dan Thomas" wrote in message
om...
Canadian aircraft are required, by law, to carry fire extinguishers. I
checked the US FARs but couldn't see that an extinguisher is required.
However, a $30 extinguisher could save your life, not to mention the
airplane. It's one of those things that many pilots don't worry about
until they need it, and then the cost of the item seems small indeed.
(Another example: a functioning ELT when the search planes are passing
by, and you realize that you've bought the farm because you didn't
bother keeping up the maintenance on it. Or it wasn't switched on to
"arm;" again, due to lousy maintenance. It has happened numerous times
up here.)
As for engine fires, the POH has all the info on such emergencies.
In Canada, a pilot is required at test time to know that book
thoroughly. It could save his life if he had an inflight fire, an
electrical fire or failure, and so on. Early POH's had no or very
little info on emergency procedures, until manufacturers started
getting sued half to death over people that died because they did the
wrong things. Now, with most airplanes built since the mid-70s, there
isn't any excuse not to have the info, except maybe not living long
enough to read the whole thing :-)

Dan