FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1946
1946 - 0208.PDF
FLIGHT JANUARY 31ST. 1946 Safer Flying Fire Risk Qreatly Reduced by Henderson Crash»proof Tank APHRASE which occurs with distressing frequency inaccounts ol air crashes is "the machine caught fireand all the occupants were burned." Granted that in a number oi cases the crash was so serious that theoccupants would have been killed anyway, there must be very many others which were not in themselves soserious that loss of life would have resulted had it not been lor the fire. During the war when risks were inevitable, many pre-cautions were taken against fuel fires and leakage. In particular self-sealing tanks, automatic chemical extin-guishers and supplies to the tanks of nitrogen under pres- sure were provided. Now that civil aviation is about to berevived, although such elaborate precautions may not be practicable, it is surely time that serious attention wasgiven to the possibility of reducing the danger of fire in a crash. Apart from the risk to the occupants themselves,there have been many instances of machines hitting people or houses on the ground, and this aspect should not beoverlooked. THere has'been in existence for several years a type offuel tank which has been found to give a very substantial measure of protection against fire incrashes which would not otherwise prove fatal to the crew. It is the Hendersoncrash-proof tank, designed and manufac- tured by the Henderson Safety Tank Co.,Ltd., of Elstree Way, Elstree, Herts. .'-• ^rS'^'^'.v.vf^ STIFFENER TANK SHELL Sandwich Construction Basically the Henderson tank is a sand-wich shelf composed of an inner shell of w%lded construction, an outer shell withfolded-seam joints, and a layer of " Hen- corite" rubber between the two shells.This construction by itself provides a good degree of protection against rupturein a crash, but it is the combination of the sandwich type of shell with a specialmethod of attaching the internal baffles which makes the tank so effective. Details ot the baffle attachment are shown in a sketch.Stiffeners of L-section are spot-welded to the inner tank SPOT- WELLDS Details oi the flexible baffleassembly. When a Henderson tank is involved in a crashj the bafflescome away from the tank shell, which then becomes a "bag" and does not burst at filler caps, inspection open-ings and attachment fittings. shell. The baffles are slotted to receive the special baffletabs, the lower ends of which are spot-welded to the stiffeners while the upper ends slide inthe baffle slots. For normal flying, the spot-weld attachments are sufficient tohold the baffles in place, but in a crash they give way, the tabs pull out of theirslots and the baffles come clean away from the main shell, which becomes ineffect a "bag" free to deform. The complete absence of riveting preventsthe shell from tearing or bursting. A great number of these tanks havebeen fit-ted to Miles Masters and examina- tion of several following crashes showedthat although the tanks had been damaged, no leakage had occured evenunder circumstances that would have caused a standard tank to burst and innone of these instances had fire broken out. An additional advantage of thistype of construction is that maintenance is reduced to practically nothing, since the " Hencorite " takes care of ' Concluded at foot of p. 122.) A tantt. sent to America lor tests. It affords an interestingcomparison with the tank on the right, which is of very different proportions. This tank was built for Captain Lamplugh's Miles M.38.Henderson tanks can be built into any aircraft without modifications to the airframe structure.
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
