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There was a time, taxiing over the airport entrance bridge in a 42,000# Convair, when it was suggested that I not throw my empty beer cans out the window (they opened back then)...not because I might get caught, but because the prop might pull them into the intake. Maybe a Rolls Royce Dart could handle it, or maybe after the engine burned up on the runway...
"What...in...the...fuck, Denise?!? You want to tell me why the coffin pipes of a six million dollar engine are full of shredded turbine blades and beer cans?!?"
"No, Gary, I really don't :
Maybe we could suggest that Gawd was throwing a gift my way and missed...?"
-denise -
What are coffin pipes?Comment
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The Convairs with radial piston engines had two augmentor tubes around the exhaust pipes, which stuck out the back of each wing, and they used them for deicing heat, the same way that a single-engine aircraft heats the cabin. When they put the turboprops in, they replaced those with big Janitrol heaters and put in one big pipe, about the size of a coffin, and it produced 10-20% (nobody agrees how much) of the engine's power for jet thrust. A cover over the top of it , on the back of the nacelle on the wing was called the "coffin cover", and it looked similar to one. It also had about a hundred screws in it, some of which had to be drilled out, so I'm glad that I was on the flight line and didn't have to do that stuff. When an engine overheats, though, it spits out pieces of the turbine blades into the coffin pipe, and some onto the ramp. Back in the 50's, you could have sold one to the Russians for a million bucks, but instead, the wily bastards talked their way into a tour of the British factory and wore soft-soled shoes that picked up dust from the lathes to analyze the metal.
-deniseComment
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To the drivers defense...There was a "Killer" sale on the beer AND it was sold "Chilled to the Bone". How could you resist?
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