ORIGINAL: thorn247
After flying my pz Trojan last year as a trainer I graduated to a glow powered Dazzler, Pulse and now a Cap 580, I am powering the cap with a brand new O.S 55ax, I am on my fourth flight with no incidences yet,Now for the strange part, After fueling and priming the plane for the first flight of the day, I put the glow lighter on and hit it with the starter, I heard the engine start to catch so I removed the starter, well the engine popped and stopped, My buddy who was helping me said ''is that grass burning?'' So we rolled the plane back and sure enough right under the pitts pipes, the grass and fuel was on fire, He said in all his years that was a first, He said he saw a molten glob of fuel fall out....at first he thought he was seeing things! The plane ran fine and I put 4 good flights on her...but all day the talk was about the fire....this ever happen to anyone before? And how the heck would you put the fire out if the plane caught!
Yes it happens a lot more than you would think with small engines like 049-09.
I happened several times to me with 09 and even an Enya .15 engine. The cox 09 was not muffled but the .15 was. Either one spit enough burning alcohol (which is nearly invisible BTW) out the exhaust to catch the wood on fire. In fact I couldn't hardly tell what was happening except I smelled wood burning and then saw it scorching