Smoke & engines

[murphey]

Need opinion on possible damage to the engine with all this smoke. Local pilot at the airport claims the smoke particles are not caught by the air filter, and will seriously damage the engine. If this were true, the commercial jets wouldn’t be flying, would they?

 

[Tom-D]

Any particle that will go thru a air-filter will go thru the engine ok.

 

[GRG55]

It's smoke. Not ash from yet another Icelandic volcano eruption.
I'm having great difficult with the idea it can do "serious damage" to an engine.

I have not had to deal with much smoke where I am this year, but 2 summers ago we had severe smoke for weeks on end and I continued to fly in it, without any apparent negative outcome.

 

[Bell206]

If this were true, the commercial jets wouldn’t be flying, would they?

Nor would they use aircraft to fight the fires. If you fly through a lot of heavy smoke then you may want to check your air filter more often. In my limited experience with fire aircraft never heard or saw issues with the smoke except the type of fire/smoke would dictate how often filters were checked.

 

[denverpilot]

Volcanic ash is bad. Smoke usually isn’t.

 

[RyanB]

Like Nate said, volcanic ash is very bad for piston and turbine engines, but smoke from wildfire is particulate pollution, so it isn't that big of a deal. Unless the air was just so bad that there wasn't enough oxygen to combust the fuel, which I feel would be unlikely and in which case, you wouldn’t be able to withstand it physically either.

 

[Tom-D]

we wash the T-56 turbines to clean the compressor, they get dirty but smoke does not effect them.
It is common to see a 10% increase in performance after a wash, when we saw the Mount Hellens ash, we changed 4 / T-56 engine because of erosion of the compressor.

 

[455 Bravo Uniform]

If the in-spec filter allows particles to go through, then those allowed particles too are “in-spec”. I don’t understand the issue.

 

[EdFred]

If the in-spec filter allows particles to go through, then those allowed particles too are “in-spec”. I don’t understand the issue.

A lot of bad info gets passed along because it starts out with, "someone once said..."

 

[luvflyin]

Need opinion on possible damage to the engine with all this smoke. Local pilot at the airport claims the smoke particles are not caught by the air filter, and will seriously damage the engine. If this were true, the commercial jets wouldn’t be flying, would they?

Nah. Birds go through engines with no problem. Most of the time. Except a lot of big ones all at once. Ask Sully

 

[luvflyin]

A lot of bad info gets passed along because it starts out with, "someone once said..."

Yeah. If it don’t start with ‘this is a no sheeter’ don’t trust it

 

[asicer]

Local pilot at the airport claims the smoke particles are not caught by the air filter, and will seriously damage the engine.

Maybe your local pilot flies with the carb heat turned on a lot of the time.

 

[Tom-D]

Mother Nature provides the best air filter, particles are
heavy, the higher you go the cleaner the air is. (general)

 

[murphey]

Maybe your local pilot flies with the carb heat turned on a lot of the time.

I dunno. He doesn't believe any A&P/IA except his neighbor (A&P/IA). The few times he flew with me, all he did was comment how he set the mixture (at the same location every time), how he lands, etc. He & his wife are really great people but he "knows everything".

 

[Velocity173]

Seriously damage the engine? No but it is a pollutant that is getting by the filter. I don’t think you’ll see any reduction in performance for a piston but in turbines, especially helos, smoke / soot is one of the pollutants that degrade engine compressor performance. Regular engine flushes are a must in heavily contaminated areas.