The International Cessna 170 Association

Seems like the topic du jour is useless accessories one can add to the 170 to help increase empty weight while reducing useful load and performance. Stretchers, empty fire extinguishers, etc. I'm all for it! So to give those extinguishers some purpose I've uploaded AK 52-3-826 in the Maintenance Library. This is the Accessory Kit to mount three parachute flare tubes on the left side of the aircraft. I saw the control box for this kit up for auction online last year but I was too cheap to get it. If anyone knows where I might find the parts for this kit please let me know. BluElder, have you ever seen these flares deployed? Probably not something one would want to launch over the Sierras this time of year, better suited for Alaska in the winter. They are for three 1 minute and 30 second flares. That doesn't seem like a lot of time between firing and landing on the illuminated field. Next up in the effort to increase empty weight -- Whitaker tandem gear!

I can remember when those flares were required and always wondered if they would really do a guy any good in a real mergency. I have never seen one deployed and have never known anyone who did.
They ought to make a good talking point at fly-ins today.

The flares were intended for more than to illuminate the landing area....They were for the purpose of announcing landing pattern intentions, and were required equipment at one time for commercial operators.

Yes, the magnesium parachute flares were required even for airlines until around 1947. United lost a DC-6 to in-flight fire at Byrce Canyon because a design flaw in the fuel system allowed overflow to collect in the combustion cabin heater. The magnesium flares made the fire uncontrollable, and the CAA allowed the airlines to remove the things shortly after. They were still required on single-engine airplanes used for night commercial operations until the late 1950s. You still see the three round tubes covered over on the left rear fuselage side of many older airplanes like 195s and Bonanzas even today. There is an abandoned 1949 A35 on my home field that has them.

Russ Farris

I once saw a 170 with flare tubes.

Here's a pamphlet from the University of Illinois on their experiments with landing flares. Click on one of the selections in the "View the book" box on the left.

Is that what these are? Seems way to far back but since 3 round holes were mentioned it just rang a bell.

Those are the holes from the flare tubes.

Is the rack still mounted behind the three holes?

n2582d wrote:Is the rack still mounted behind the three holes?

This is one of the many planes that I looked at in my quest to purchase but did not purchase this one. I just happened to still have the pictures and recall those holes on the side and wondered what they were for.

n2582d wrote:Here's a pamphlet from the University of Illinois on their experiments with landing flares. Click on one of the selections in the "View the book" box on the left.

Gary, that was AWESOME! Thanks for posting it. I'm always interested in forgotten details of aviation history; four-course ranges, low frequency radios and now parachute flares!

I have to say, the whole procedure they worked up was complex and would be high workload during the tremendous stress of a night forced landing - especially using the hand held flare gun. Russ Farris

That pamphlet is great! I remember working on a C35 Bonanza in A&P school, it had had a nosegear collapse and we rebuilt it. We found that it had 3 flares still loaded in the tubes (this was about 1984) so we VERY CAREFULLY removed them and gave them to the local Air National Guard guys for disposal. They probably wouldn't have fired anymore but we didn't want to be responsible for burning down the school hangar (at least not that day).

I have a stiffener with three holes where a flare launcher would likely be placed, but the exterior skin is intact. No rack for flares either.

I took a set out of an Apache about in the early 80s.... I took them out to the cabin & shot one off & it went about 100 feet in the air & got stuck in the top of a tree & lit the whole place up like daylight. good thing it was winter or the whole woods would have been on fire. don't remember what happened to the other two but I was done with that