Carrying propane tanks? Safe?

Hocky

Hocky

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Hocky
Is it allowed to carry a propane tank on a plane? For use with a camping stove.
 
I'll let someone else answer the legal question. Safety wise, I would think that a crash bad enough to damage the tank enough to rupture it you will not likely care any more. Could be bad for the recovery crew. Also if you talking about needing it for camping at Osh, you can buy the small green tanks at the camp store onsite or the supermarket that is just offsite.
 
I don't think there are any laws against it. I assume you are talking about the little coleman style propane tanks. Keep it secured separately so it can't bounce around the cabin or become a projectile, and leave the plastic cap on.
 
No, you have to turn them into the TSA agent as you pass through the gate ;)
 
I've carried mine in my hiking pack numerous times. with 80 gallons of 100LL attached to a hot engine, a small can of camp stove gas 8' behind me is the least of my worries in a crash.
 
If the plane is not being used for "air commerce", there are no regulations against it. See this thread for more on that.

However, whether it's a good idea or not is another story entirely. Just as not everything which is illegal is unsafe, not everything that is legal is safe. Having spend more than four decades in aviation watching bad things happen, and having read stories like this, I wouldn't do it.
 
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All hot air balloons are heated by propane. The aluminum tanks are typically 10 gallon DOT 4E240 upright cylinders that are built for forklift trucks. Steel tanks are generally custom made (all this according to the FAA Balloon Flying Handbook.)

Given that there is also an open flame and virtually the entire balloon basket and envelope is flammable, I would think carrying a propane tank in your light single airplane is magnitudes safer, and therefore not of much concern. Although I'd want to have it secured from becoming a projectile in a crash or hard landing or during turbulence. I wouldn't expect it to be a fire hazard in this case.
 
Jim Logajan said:
Given that there is also an open flame and virtually the entire balloon basket and envelope is flammable, I would think carrying a propane tank in your light single airplane is magnitudes safer, and therefore not of much concern.
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Only if it's the same FAA-approved tank they use in balloons. If it's one of those Blue Rhino tanks you get at Home Depot for your barbecue grill, given the warnings in their manual (e.g., "Under no circumstances are 20# grill cylinders to be allowed inside your store. "), I wouldn't feel real good about carrying it in the plane. If you're talking about the ones for small propane torches and camp stoves (16.4 oz size), I'd read the label really carefully. Here's a typical note on transporting those tanks:
U.S. Department of Transportation and industry safety standards require propane cylinders to be transported upright, in a well-ventilated area of the vehicle. Upright storage allows the safety valve to release propane gas in the event that tank pressure becomes too high, instead of leaking propane in denser liquid form.

Propane must not be left in a closed vehicle, trunk or in hot temperatures, any of which can lead to unsafe pressure inside a propane tank, or an accumulation of flammable propane gas. Propane tanks should be removed from the vehicle promptly when you arrive.
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Me? I'll just buy a tank when I get to OSH. I'll bet someone could make a few bucks selling them on site (and the EAA would no doubt get a percentage, too, which would be a good thing).
 
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I can't seem to find a general counsel letter that covers being afraid of your own shadow. Can anyone help with that?
 
If it is legal, I can't see why it would be unsafe. I go to the local store to get gas and chuck the tanks in the back of my truck. They get bumped around, etc, and I'm not fearful of them exploding. I can't see why carrying a tank in the plane can be dangerous at all if I'm staying below 10k altitude. No more than carrying them in a car I would think.
 
Hocky said:
If it is legal, I can't see why it would be unsafe.
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As I said above, not everything that's legal is safe. That's a very, very important lesson you need to learn if you want to keep flying and live to be my age. I have come to realize from your posts that you are somewhat short on experience and long on confidence, but there's a big difference in the final result if a propane tank leaks in the back of your truck versus in the cockpit of your airplane. Of course, the FAA leaves this choice to you, but sometimes "the only winning move is not to play".
 
Ron Levy said:
Me? I'll just buy a tank when I get to OSH. I'll bet someone could make a few bucks selling them on site (and the EAA would no doubt get a percentage, too, which would be a good thing).
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I remember paying $10.00 for one of those cans at Sun N Fun?
 
In*Internet slang, a*troll*(/ˈtroʊl/,/ˈtrɒl/) is a person who sows discord on the Internet by starting arguments or upsetting people,[1]*by posting inflammatory,[2]*extraneous, or*off-topic*messages in an online community (such as a forum,*chat room, or blog) with the deliberate intent of provoking readers into an emotional*response[3]*or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion.[4]
 
Hocky said:
If it is legal, I can't see why it would be unsafe. I go to the local store to get gas and chuck the tanks in the back of my truck. They get bumped around, etc, and I'm not fearful of them exploding. I can't see why carrying a tank in the plane can be dangerous at all if I'm staying below 10k altitude. No more than carrying them in a car I would think.
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I carry potato chips bags home from the store in my truck with no problem. Same for full gas cans in the bed. But in my plane, I don't carry a lot of sealed chip bags, but I've had two blow themselves open around 8000 msl.

As the plane goes up, air pressure goes down and the container expands. Even unopened water bottles get very tight. What would happen to a five-gallon gas can as the air pressure outside the can decreases as you climb, but the combined air pressure and gas vapor pressure inside stays at whatever it was when you filled it up?

Think about it for a minute . . . even a metal can usually has rubber gaskets; my 2½ gallon steel can has a steel lid with a permanently attached rubber spout with a rubber stopper in the end.
 
Hank S said:
I carry potato chips bags home from the store in my truck with no problem. Same for full gas cans in the bed. But in my plane, I don't carry a lot of sealed chip bags, but I've had two blow themselves open around 8000 msl.

As the plane goes up, air pressure goes down and the container expands. Even unopened water bottles get very tight. What would happen to a five-gallon gas can as the air pressure outside the can decreases as you climb, but the combined air pressure and gas vapor pressure inside stays at whatever it was when you filled it up?
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That's more or less what appears to have happened in this fatal accident.
 
Hank S said:
I carry potato chips bags home from the store in my truck with no problem. Same for full gas cans in the bed. But in my plane, I don't carry a lot of sealed chip bags, but I've had two blow themselves open around 8000 msl.
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What is the range of typical pressures a propane tank is expected to encounter in normal use? What range of pressures are they designed to handle? How do those values compare to the range of pressure that would occur between sea level and the vacuum of space?

As the plane goes up, air pressure goes down and the container expands. Even unopened water bottles get very tight. What would happen to a five-gallon gas can as the air pressure outside the can decreases as you climb, but the combined air pressure and gas vapor pressure inside stays at whatever it was when you filled it up?

Think about it for a minute . . . even a metal can usually has rubber gaskets; my 2½ gallon steel can has a steel lid with a permanently attached rubber spout with a rubber stopper in the end.
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At what altitude will a propane tank's relief valve open, or the tank without a relief valve explode like your potato chip bags?

Obviously I already know the answer to these questions. Even if you don't answer, the curious will go looking and figure out the risk for themselves.
 
Ron Levy said:
As I said above, not everything that's legal is safe. That's a very, very important lesson you need to learn if you want to keep flying and live to be my age. I have come to realize from your posts that you are somewhat short on experience and long on confidence, but there's a big difference in the final result if a propane tank leaks in the back of your truck versus in the cockpit of your airplane. Of course, the FAA leaves this choice to you, but sometimes "the only winning move is not to play".
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Ron, I respect what you are saying and please don't take it as over confidence or a sign of disrespect or anything like that but I'm trying to understand why carrying propane in a plane is unsafe. If anyone else can answer these questions please also I'd like to hear your viewpoints.

Do propane tanks get filled to different pressures based on altitude? So if you buy a tank in Denver vs Miami is there any difference? Continuing on that if I buy a tank in Denver then drive over Independence Pass is it going to explode? I'm sure this is done all the time. How is this any different to me putting a tank into a plane (properly secured and upright) then staying below 10k altitude?
 
Folks concerned with propane should be interested in it's vapor pressure as a function of temperature. Atmospheric pressure or the lack there of is inconsequential.
 
I carry propane tanks to the Bahamas, and filled dive tanks too. I fly at 5500 and keep a pressure gauge on the dive tanks just to monitor them, but I have never seen the pressure rise to any noticeable amount, but that's just me.

Tanks are not my concern, WEATHER is my challenge..
 
Let's see... a propane relief valve is typically set to vent between 375 and 500 psi, and the pressure in the tank varies with temperature but would be about 200 psi at 100 F. With a maximum 15 psi differential between sea level atmospheric and the vacuum of space, your tank will neither vent or explode as long as it doesn't get too hot for some reason.

The bigger issue here one could argue is what might happen if something went south. If you had a fire on board, a heated and venting propane tank could make a bad situation terminal in a hurry.

Then again, a venting pressurized oxygen tank isn't going to help matters either.
 
I've gone camping numerous times in my plane. I carry all my camping gear with me including one or more propane bottles. I've never thought twice about it and will continue to not think twice. Just like I don't think twice about throwing all my equipment in the back of my Toyota 4Runner and heading down the highway with propane and white gas riding along in my car. I haven't hauled white gas in the plane but, in my sigg bottle, I wouldn't consider that dangerous either.

I'm confident that this has been done thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of times and one crash in 1993 caused by an improperly sealed can of TCP and a smoker does not make it inherently dangerous.

Heck, engine failures cause crashes and I still take mine with me. :yikes:
 
This whole discussion is predicated on the assumption that the OP's tank is filled with gas.... the OP didn't specify that his tank would have anything in it.....

Jeez you guys fall into Hocky's trolling- hook, line and sinker....:lol::):wink2:
 
deltaindia said:
This whole discussion is predicated on the assumption that the OP's tank is filled with gas.... the OP didn't specify that his tank would have anything in it.....

Jeez you guys fall into Hocky's trolling- hook, line and sinker....:lol::):wink2:
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No, propane tanks when full are not filled with gas...
 
deltaindia said:
This whole discussion is predicated on the assumption that the OP's tank is filled with gas.... the OP didn't specify that his tank would have anything in it.....

Jeez you guys fall into Hocky's trolling- hook, line and sinker....:lol::):wink2:
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What? The question is as asked. I want to carry a Blue Rhino tank of propane (filled) in a plane. Along with a camping stove, tent, food, beer, coolers with dry ice, so I can be self sufficient when camping.

How about you and your clan of vigilantes stop harassing and stalking me and find something more productive to do with your time?
 
Hocky said:
Ron, I respect what you are saying and please don't take it as over confidence or a sign of disrespect or anything like that but I'm trying to understand why carrying propane in a plane is unsafe. If anyone else can answer these questions please also I'd like to hear your viewpoints.
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Fair enough question.

"Safe" and "unsafe" are not absolutes -- it's all shades of gray. When we make choices like this, we are balancing the risk (the severity of the effect if something goes wrong and the likelihood of it going wrong) versus the return (what you gain by having taken the risk, or what you don't lose by taking the risk). See AC 60-22, the ADM chapter in the Pilot's Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge, and the FAA Risk Management Handbook for the full discussion on this process. Lots of really good reading in there, and you can apply these concepts to just about everything in life, not just flying.

So, what's the risk? Possibilities which immediately come to mind include leakage in flight leading to fire/explosion (like the accident I linked above), cooking off in event of an independently started fire, or fire/missile hazard in event of a crash. The likelihood of occurrence and the severity of the results is going to vary with the type of container involved.

For example, those 20 lb barbecue grill bottles seem to be pretty risky given their apparently light construction, large size, and the warnings they carry (like "never take them indoors"). OTOH, the FAA-approved tanks that balloonists use seem pretty low risk, although balloons have very well ventilated cockpits and don't hit the ground as hard as an airplane going 100 knots or so. The camp stove bottles are pretty small, which both makes them easy to secure and reduces the amount of flammable material involved, but I have no idea how leak-proof they are either out of the box or after they are opened.

What's the return for carrying your own camp stove bottle in your plane to OSH? With bottles apparently available for $10 on site, I really don't see much there. I doubt you can buy them all that much cheaper at home, and even if you can, the couple of bucks difference seems like pretty cheap fire insurance to me. About the only advantage I see is you won't have to slog over to where they're selling them, but at my age and in my profession (lots of sitting, either in airplanes, before computers, or across a briefing table), I need all the exercise I can get anyway, so there's an advantage to not bringing the bottle with me. :wink2:

So, all things considered, I just don't see the risk (even if it's not very large) being worth the return (which I see as somewhere between miniscule and zero).

Make sense?
 
Hocky said:
What? The question is as asked. I want to carry a Blue Rhino tank of propane (filled) in a plane.
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While I'd consider carrying one of the 16.4 oz camp stove bottles (sealed out of the box, not after being opened), given all the warnings Blue Rhino gives their dealers (including "never put them inside the store), there's no way I'd take one in an airplane.
 
Hocky said:
How about you and your clan of vigilantes stop harassing and stalking me and find something more productive to do with your time?
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I forgot to turn the sarcasm switch on for my post.....
 
Hocky said:
What? The question is as asked. I want to carry a Blue Rhino tank of propane (filled) in a plane. Along with a camping stove, tent, food, beer, coolers with dry ice, so I can be self sufficient when camping.
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Whoah...a blue rhino 20# tank? No way I'd put one of those in my plane. I thought you were talking about a small coleman camp stove tank.
 
The funny thing is that in Southeast Asia, if not most of Asia, it's perfectly normal to have 20 lb (equivalent) propane cylinders mounted indoors under the kitchen counter to fuel cooking ranges in residences and restaurants.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The funny thing is that in Southeast Asia, if not most of Asia, it's perfectly normal to have 20 lb (equivalent) propane cylinders mounted indoors under the kitchen counter to fuel cooking ranges in residences and restaurants.
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But that's really no different that out in the country with a propane water heater and furnace...or in the city with natural gas.

Propane is far more dangerous than natural gas though.
 
Hocky said:
What? The question is as asked. I want to carry a Blue Rhino tank of propane (filled) in a plane. Along with a camping stove, tent, food, beer, coolers with dry ice, so I can be self sufficient when camping.

How about you and your clan of vigilantes stop harassing and stalking me and find something more productive to do with your time?
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1. You never said anything about a blue rhino tank, you said "a tank" which for most camp stoves means a the small green 14 OZ tank.
2. Now you mention packing dry ice which is more of a hazard then a propane tank.
 
Sac Arrow said:
The funny thing is that in Southeast Asia, if not most of Asia, it's perfectly normal to have 20 lb (equivalent) propane cylinders mounted indoors under the kitchen counter to fuel cooking ranges in residences and restaurants.
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The risk/return equation may be viewed somewhat differently in the Third World. Based on a lot of cooking and travel shows I watch (not to mention my own experience over there 40 years ago), I suspect that "indoors" in a Southeast Asian restaurant is not quite as contained a space as it is in a restaurant here, no less the cockpit of a light single-engine airplane.
 
Ron Levy said:
While I'd consider carrying one of the 16.4 oz camp stove bottles (sealed out of the box, not after being opened), given all the warnings Blue Rhino gives their dealers (including "never put them inside the store), there's no way I'd take one in an airplane.
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Just like legal doesn't mean safe, let's acknowledge that the reasons for the Blue Rhino warnings may not have anything to do with actual risk but perhaps some lawyers wanting to avoid liability.
 
I'd mostly be worried about the damn thing hitting me in the head in an accident then it exploding. I would just secure it properly (actually, I probably wouldn't, but it's fun to say I'd at least do that).

The gas in your tanks is a bigger risk in an accident, IMO.
 
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