My Engine Fire!!

It's 10pm. It's 6 degrees outside. I decide to go flying. I fly an Cessna
150.

The engine has a Tanis preheater. During the pre-flight I notice that the
engine block feel reasonably warm. Everything else looks good.

I prime 3 or 5 shots and crank the engine. No joy. I let it crank for a
reasonable time to clear any flooding and repeat.

I prime 3 or 5 shots and crank the engine. No joy. I let it crank for a
reasonable time to clear any flooding and repeat.

I prime 3 or 5 shots and crank the engine. Backfire. I pause and wonder
"what the heck, it's never done that before." Then I notice a glow
from
under the engine cowling. And smoke. How weird, that's never happen before.
About two nanoseconds later I realize the engine is on FIRE!!!!!

I begin to bail out of the plane. But I cannot get my seatbelt undone. I
say
out loud "calm down", get my seat belt undone, and leave the plane.

About 30 seconds later, watching a bit of glow and smoke come from under my
cowling, I realize that the plane is not going to immediatly explode. I go
back to the plane and look for a fire extinguisher. There is none, but I do
grab my flight bag and run to the car. No fire extiguisher there either.

By now about a minute has gone by. The glow is gone, but the smoke
continues.
I sit and wait. I'd like to open the oil-access door, but I have no idea if
the fire is out and don't want to add any extra oxygen.

Finally, after 5 minutes, I walk to the plane. The cowling is cool to the
touch. I open the oil access door. Everything looks fine. Great! Now I
can go flying.

Er, not. I decide that people who fly after engine compartment fires are
those people who end up on the "How Stupid Was He" columns in my
favorite
flying magazine. I push the plane back in the hanger.

The mechanic says it might be that I over-primed the engine. It also might
be
an accumuation of oil from an oil leak. Everything important seems to be OK
except my pride.

Conclusions:

1) I forgive myself the panic two seconds with the seat belt. Next time I'll
be calmer but it was my first engine fire and I was un-calm for only two
seconds.

2) One should remember the fuel shut-off valve. It's quite out-of-sight, but
this would have been the only time in my whole flying career that it would
have actually been useful.

3) I'm gonna have to reread the "cold weather starting procedure"
section of
the manual.

4) The inside of the cowl is rather hard to see. How the heck is one suppose
to know if there is oil accumulating? Especially since there were no
significant oil drippings onto the hanger floor and the engine was not
consuming oil unreasonably.

5) Fire extinguishers. For this fire it would have made things worse. For a
different fire, it might have made things better. Hmmmmmm.

6) Insurance. The plane is insured, and I can clearly afford the deductable.

That makes many things OK.



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