Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!cbnews!military
From: dnwiebe@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan N Wiebe)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Capping oil fires
Message-ID: <1991Mar13.004310.8409@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 13 Mar 91 00:43:10 GMT
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (william.b.thacker)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 28
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: dnwiebe@cis.ohio-state.edu (Dan N Wiebe)


	The following has got to be a dumb idea, because nobody does it,
but I'm curious as to why it's dumb.
	Back a Herky-bird or some other aircraft with a rough-field
capability and lots of prop- or jet-wash up close to a burning well,
in order to blow the rising smoke and fumes over to one side.  Then
have one of those big twin-rotor Chinook choppers haul a large hollow
steel hemisphere to right over the well, and lower (or drop) it to the
ground.  'Twould seem that this course of action might keep oxygen from
the fire long enough for the hot things to cool off, at which point the
big bowl could be removed and the well capped.
	I assume that more oil would well up under the bowl, but if it
was heavy enough, it seems that the oil would stay under there until
the bowl was full (cut a small hole in the top to let out the air), and
act as a coolant.
	Of course, maybe the downblast from the Chinook would interfere
with the backblast from the Hercules and the smoke would smother the
Chinook operators; in that case, replace the Chinook with a big crane.
	What's wrong with this picture?

Dan Wiebe

[mod.note: I'd think that any steel bowl a Chinook could lift would
be floated away by the rising oil... just my guess. - Bill ]