We recently had Fire Boy serviced by a technician who taught us how the system works, and as it turns out, our fears were somewhat unjustified.
First, Fire Boy uses a "clean agent," not the noxious white foam I had envisioned, and it can't damage the engines. Helina, therefore, cannot hit a switch and cost us two new cars.
Second, it is not as easy to set Fire Boy off as we had feared. There is a pull switch near the galley marked "FIRE" that we assumed, if pulled, would set off Fire Boy.
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Fireboy! |
The Fire Boy switch we were most concerned about was the green flip-switch located near the steering wheel in the main cockpit. No pin. No strong pull. Just a flip switch.
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Cockpit Fireboy |
The green switch cannot set off Fire Boy. Rather, if Fire Boy goes off (either by the pull switch or automatically if a fire is detected in the engine room), it automatically shuts off the engine, and hitting the green switch allows you to restart it. A neat safety feature, but in any case, Helina can cause absolutely no damage by flipping it.
So, is Fire Boy still a concern for Helina? Definitely. If she sets it off, we need a new canister of whatever the "clean agent" is, and that costs $1,000.
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Costly Clean Agent |
I'd worry more about the asphyxiation risk rather than the expense. How confident are you that your engine compartment doesn't leak air into the cabin?
ReplyDeleteThankfully, yes--sealed and vented only to the outside. Hopefully we won't need to test that out though!
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