Re: reminds me of...
This whole fuel idea was shown on Tomorrows World. They started by demonstrating that kerosene is hard to ignite by turning a blow torch on a dish of the stuff. They then did the same with an atomised spray to show how easily it burnt then.
The invention was an additive that reacted to violent movement, eg a crash, by turning the kerosene form a liquid to a jelly. The idea being that “solid” kerosene wouldn’t burn. The catalyst near the engine would disable the gelling mechanism.
In the test, a remote control plane was supposed to crash land on a runway that contained 4 obstacles designed to rip the wings (fuel tanks) apart. The pilot made a small error on landing and one of these obstacles ripped through an engine causing a flash fire. The additive did its job and the flash fire quickly subsided even though the destroyed engine led to more fuel than expected being available to the fire. Unfortunately, the flash fire was enough to get some of the luggage smouldering and a few minutes later a secondary fire started that eventually burnt out the plane. The test was deemed a failure.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
