B17 crashed

[ChicoMick]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

Funnily enough, keeping them airborne is the best way to preserve them in years to come, because keeping them airworthy means keeping them serviced and in running order.

Exactly ! A lot of flyng warbirds were actually saved from becoming decaying wrecks.

[ATAG_Doc]

That's a total loss. The fire definitely started inside that craft some where possibly and likely electrical.

According to eye witnesses it was an engine fire. Electrical fires are extremely improbable with the air regulations on electrical plants.

[bongodriver]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

According to eye witnesses it was an engine fire. Electrical fires are extremely improbable with the air regulations on electrical plants.

only thing is that I see no evidence of any serious engine fire on the pics, all four are relatively intact, but the centre fuselage is burned out.........

[JG52Krupi]

There was smoke trailing from the aircraft apparently, this doesn't mean that it spread from the engine it could easily have been a fuse box something similar to the one that gutted a 787 during flight test.

You have to remember that these are old aircraft and are made with aluminium that catches fire and burns easily, I don't think that current aluminium alloy aircraft would burn quite that quickly.

[Sven]

That one B-29 which was recovered from ice also went up in flames, those 4 engined birds seem to attract fire.

Originally Posted by JG52Krupi

There was smoke trailing from the aircraft apparently, this doesn't mean that it spread from the engine it could easily have been a fuse box something similar to the one that gutted a 787 during flight test.

You have to remember that these are old aircraft and are made with aluminium that catches fire and burns easily, I don't think that current aluminium alloy aircraft would burn quite that quickly.

I cant think of many "fuse boxes" in the wing of a B-17,if there was an electrical fire it would have spreaded in the fuselage,but then again with 7 people on board I reckon that they would have been able to put the fire down..

It could have been a supercharger failure,which might have caused a fire under the wing (hence the visibility from below and the ineffective fire extinguisher procedure). I suppose we will have to wait for the CAA report.

Uh and aluminium pretty much burns in the same way,no matter how old (plus bear in mind that most of these birds are re-skinned).

[IceFire]

What a terrible loss! Very fortunate that all on board were able to escape basically uninjured as far as I know.

[JG52Krupi]

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger

I cant think of many "fuse boxes" in the wing of a B-17,if there was an electrical fire it would have spreaded in the fuselage,but then again with 7 people on board I reckon that they would have been able to put the fire down..

It could have been a supercharger failure,which might have caused a fire under the wing (hence the visibility from below and the ineffective fire extinguisher procedure). I suppose we will have to wait for the CAA report.

Uh and aluminium pretty much burns in the same way,no matter how old (plus bear in mind that most of these birds are re-skinned).

True, could have been the supercharger.

On the old side of things i wasn't referring to the actual age of the material but the type of aluminium used, aluminum has come a long way since the types/alloys that were first being used on aircraft.

[Bryan21cag]

All these years later and she still brought her crew down in one piece before she gave up the ghost. RIP Belle.