Firewall

All I'm getting from internet sources is that the firewall is a titanium bulkhead that seperates the engine from the passenger cabin. Its purpose is to absorb heat and be flame resistant.

Has it improved over the years, keeping in mind, that the above statment refers to propeller driven aircraft? and does anyone here have any schematics concerning firewalls.

Is there a more thorogh definition of what a firewall really is?

A good source for an answer here could be found in the book that most north american pilots use for their training called the From the Ground Up aka the FTGU. If no one has further responded to this by the time I get home I will post and pull out their defintion for you. You are more or less have it right though in referance to the norm prop plane.

I shall check out this book tommorow, even though its not as comprehensive as I wanted it to be. From the looks of it, it appears to be a basic flight manual. I was looking more for a schematic with dimensions and material properties.

ie: the firewall used in the "general atomics predator B" presuming that it wasn't a UAV and that it did contain a passenger cabin; I would think the firewall would be located near the air intake.

hi , i do not know as much about aircraft , as i would wish to , so forgive the slight drift of topicality

but i have done a lot of motorsports [ rally mostly ] , and the fire wll specifucations published by all the major governing bodies , are IMHO likley to be sufficiently similarr to aerospace firewall specs for your requirements

and the regs are published and widely availiable . unlike many aircraft specs which contain commercial secrets .

appologies i do not have time to dig through my " floor based filing system " to find something

google should turn up - google FAI , MSA etc

PS - just a last thought - but given the two way data links and on board computers - could predator have a hardware computer firewall built into its avionics to protect against external hacking ?

[edit on 12-2-2007 by ignorant_ape]

On c-130's, you have the prop, then the engine, then the firewall leading into the drybay. The firewall is aptly named because that is where all the fuel, hydraulic fluid, and air shutoffs are. It's where the fire should stop and not get into the fuel tanks. I haven't heard of them being flame resistant, it's just a flat piece of metal with holes drilled into it for various lines. Hope that helps you out.