AIG is selling a Ventus 3M after a small trailer fire caused by an overheated trailer fan. Anybody know the particulars on this! What fan and why I caught fire?
JJ

On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 9:14:38 AM UTC-4, johnsin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> AIG is selling a Ventus 3M after a small trailer fire caused by an overheated trailer fan. Anybody know the particulars on this! What fan and why I caught fire?
> JJ
I don't think the owner posts here, so I will relate what he told me. In the past he has used a small rechargeable Makita leaf blower to move air through the wings and dry them out after a contest. When the battery dies, he recharges and repeats. He thought there's got to be a better way, so he found a similar looking unit with 120 volt power on Amazon, and ordered up two--one for each wing. When they came, they seemed perfect: the little rubber nozzle fit right in to the fill port. He plugged them in and went upstairs. Ten minutes later, he smelled something, and knew instantly what it was. By the time he got back down to the basement there was smoke and fire, and it was no simple task to extinguish the fire before it spread to the house. The vertical stab is pretty much burned through (you can poke a finger through the composite), and the wings got hot. It seems the blower shorted out and caught fire, taking the glider out with it.

Nelson

On Friday, 17 June 2022 at 17:38:53 UTC+1, Nelson Howe wrote:
> On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 9:14:38 AM UTC-4, johnsin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > AIG is selling a Ventus 3M after a small trailer fire caused by an overheated trailer fan. Anybody know the particulars on this! What fan and why I caught fire?
> > JJ
> I don't think the owner posts here, so I will relate what he told me. In the past he has used a small rechargeable Makita leaf blower to move air through the wings and dry them out after a contest. When the battery dies, he recharges and repeats. He thought there's got to be a better way, so he found a similar looking unit with 120 volt power on Amazon, and ordered up two--one for each wing. When they came, they seemed perfect: the little rubber nozzle fit right in to the fill port. He plugged them in and went upstairs. Ten minutes later, he smelled something, and knew instantly what it was. By the time he got back down to the basement there was smoke and fire, and it was no simple task to extinguish the fire before it spread to the house.. The vertical stab is pretty much burned through (you can poke a finger through the composite), and the wings got hot. It seems the blower shorted out and caught fire, taking the glider out with it.
>
> Nelson

Photos:

https://tinyurl.com/2ph5abfj

On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 11:51:47 AM UTC-7, jpg...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Friday, 17 June 2022 at 17:38:53 UTC+1, Nelson Howe wrote:
> > On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 9:14:38 AM UTC-4, johnsin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > AIG is selling a Ventus 3M after a small trailer fire caused by an overheated trailer fan. Anybody know the particulars on this! What fan and why I caught fire?
> > > JJ
> > I don't think the owner posts here, so I will relate what he told me. In the past he has used a small rechargeable Makita leaf blower to move air through the wings and dry them out after a contest. When the battery dies, he recharges and repeats. He thought there's got to be a better way, so he found a similar looking unit with 120 volt power on Amazon, and ordered up two--one for each wing. When they came, they seemed perfect: the little rubber nozzle fit right in to the fill port. He plugged them in and went upstairs. Ten minutes later, he smelled something, and knew instantly what it was. By the time he got back down to the basement there was smoke and fire, and it was no simple task to extinguish the fire before it spread to the house. The vertical stab is pretty much burned through (you can poke a finger through the composite), and the wings got hot. It seems the blower shorted out and caught fire, taking the glider out with it.
> >
> > Nelson
> Photos:
>
> https://tinyurl.com/2ph5abfj

Wow, the outboard spar fitting shows some heat damage, but it may be limited to the spar wrapping, and may not have damaged the spar cap, which is higher density and takes much longer to absorb heat. We repaired a wing that had seen enough heat to blister the skin in a large area, but after removing the top skin I found the spar cap was OK………..we proof loaded the wing to 5.3 G’s before test flight.

The info page doesn’t mention the trailer, but everything is sitting in the bent bird yard, so I’d bet everything goes to the high bidder?
JJ

Attempt at photos resulted in a error message.
Ideas?
R

On Friday, 17 June 2022 at 20:22:38 UTC+1, johnsin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 11:51:47 AM UTC-7, jpg...@gmail.com wrote:
> > On Friday, 17 June 2022 at 17:38:53 UTC+1, Nelson Howe wrote:
> > > On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 9:14:38 AM UTC-4, johnsin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> > > > AIG is selling a Ventus 3M after a small trailer fire caused by an overheated trailer fan. Anybody know the particulars on this! What fan and why I caught fire?
> > > > JJ
> > > I don't think the owner posts here, so I will relate what he told me. In the past he has used a small rechargeable Makita leaf blower to move air through the wings and dry them out after a contest. When the battery dies, he recharges and repeats. He thought there's got to be a better way, so he found a similar looking unit with 120 volt power on Amazon, and ordered up two--one for each wing. When they came, they seemed perfect: the little rubber nozzle fit right in to the fill port. He plugged them in and went upstairs. Ten minutes later, he smelled something, and knew instantly what it was. By the time he got back down to the basement there was smoke and fire, and it was no simple task to extinguish the fire before it spread to the house. The vertical stab is pretty much burned through (you can poke a finger through the composite), and the wings got hot. It seems the blower shorted out and caught fire, taking the glider out with it.
> > >
> > > Nelson
> > Photos:
> >
> > https://tinyurl.com/2ph5abfj
>
>
> Wow, the outboard spar fitting shows some heat damage, but it may be limited to the spar wrapping, and may not have damaged the spar cap, which is higher density and takes much longer to absorb heat. We repaired a wing that had seen enough heat to blister the skin in a large area, but after removing the top skin I found the spar cap was OK………..we proof loaded the wing to 5.3 G’s before test flight.
>
> The info page doesn’t mention the trailer, but everything is sitting in the bent bird yard, so I’d bet everything goes to the high bidder?
> JJ

The AIG salvage page seems not to be working right now even if loaded directly and not just through the tinyurl I posted earlier.

Some days, your the windshield
Some days your the bug
Just when I thought I'd heard about everything,
I read the story of the above fire.
What kind of Sh*t luck is that?!
Catch your Glider AND your house on fire?
Nick
T

Right?
On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 3:54:37 PM UTC-7, nickkennedy...@gmail.com wrote:
> Some days, your the windshield
> Some days your the bug
> Just when I thought I'd heard about everything,
> I read the story of the above fire.
> What kind of Sh*t luck is that?!
> Catch your Glider AND your house on fire?
> Nick
> T

On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 6:47:31 PM UTC-7, kuzi...@gmail.com wrote:
> Right?.
> On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 3:54:37 PM UTC-7, nickkennedy...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Some days, your the windshield
> > Some days your the bug
> > Just when I thought I'd heard about everything,
> > I read the story of the above fire.
> > What kind of Sh*t luck is that?!
> > Catch your Glider AND your house on fire?
> > Nick

That story got me remembering the day I made a fiberglass repair just inside the wing root rib on an ASW-20. I usually place a 100w light bulb near the repair to raise the temperature for a proper cure. The lights shield keeping it away from the fiberglass, but I couldn’t get the bulb inside the wing with the shade on, so I remover the shade! I used several strips of duct tape to insure the light bulb couldn’t touch the fiberglass.. Everything looked copacetic, so I closed up the shop and went to lunch…………
About an hour later, I returned to find the whole shop full of smoke! The heat from the 100W bulb made the duct tape loose it’s grip and the light bulb slowly lowered down and came to rest on top of the wet fiberglass repair I had just made.
Talk about catastrophic consequences, I came very close to burning down the shop with a customers new bird inside! That’s when I got Product Liability Insurance!
JJ

On Saturday, June 18, 2022 at 10:49:04 AM UTC-4, johnsin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 6:47:31 PM UTC-7, kuzi...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Right?.
> > On Friday, June 17, 2022 at 3:54:37 PM UTC-7, nickkennedy...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Some days, your the windshield
> > > Some days your the bug
> > > Just when I thought I'd heard about everything,
> > > I read the story of the above fire.
> > > What kind of Sh*t luck is that?!
> > > Catch your Glider AND your house on fire?
> > > Nick
> That story got me remembering the day I made a fiberglass repair just inside the wing root rib on an ASW-20. I usually place a 100w light bulb near the repair to raise the temperature for a proper cure. The lights shield keeping it away from the fiberglass, but I couldn’t get the bulb inside the wing with the shade on, so I remover the shade! I used several strips of duct tape to insure the light bulb couldn’t touch the fiberglass. Everything looked copacetic, so I closed up the shop and went to lunch…………
> About an hour later, I returned to find the whole shop full of smoke! The heat from the 100W bulb made the duct tape loose it’s grip and the light bulb slowly lowered down and came to rest on top of the wet fiberglass repair I had just made.
> Talk about catastrophic consequences, I came very close to burning down the shop with a customers new bird inside! That’s when I got Product Liability Insurance!
> JJ
Probably most of us have burned a hole at one time or another. I have. Small repair gets bigger.
Sigh
UH