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From the Flight Deck
by Kevin R. Dingman
Stoichiometric (stow-e-key-oh-metric)
Airplane engine chemistry, carbon monoxide detectors and butter pecan ice cream.
Jet fuel Avgas Combustion
Heme Hemoglobin (Hb) Ice Cream
C12 H23 (about 13% more energy per pound than gasoline) C8 H18
CxHy +O2 ➝CO2 +H2O+CO+C+Energy
or stoichiometric as:
2C8H18 +25O2 ➝16CO2 +18H2O+Energy
C34H32FeN4O4
C738H1166N812O203S2FE
C15H8Cl8O2 + NaCl + H2O + C8H8O3 + C12H22O11 + H2 + Milk + Pecans
If you understand the relevance of the Forward us more time to get on the ground and
above compounds, chemicals, emul-
sions and reactions as they relate to flying fossil fuel-powered planes, then just go purchase a sensitive CO detector, put it in your airplane and move on to the next prodigious T &T article. If not, or if you simply can’t resist reading this humble column, then please continue. But be warned, even though this story may save your life, it’s going to taste more like insipid plain yogurt than tasty butter pecan ice cream.
30 • TWIN & TURBINE / September 2020
In May of this year, I wrote an arti- cle titled “1.29 Gigawatts!” It was about electrical fires and onboard emergen- cy equipment. I claimed that any old smoke/CO detector would be better than none at all and suggested a $36 detector from Home Depot. While this is obviously true, one of our long- time readers (a trained and qualified hazmat guy) pointed out that it’s not much more money, in airplane dollars, to get one that’s extra sensitive that will alert us sooner and thereby give
into clean air. And thus was the impe- tus for this article. So, if you’re not a hazmat expert or versed in thermody- namics, engineering, chemistry, the respiratory system of vertebrates or in making ice cream, please read on.
Poison Contrails
An ideal fuel/air mixture in which both the fuel and the oxygen in the air are completely consumed is called the stoichiometric mixture and is described as the ratio of the mass of