What does everyone do with their old flares? I had a heck of a time
finding an authority (Fire Department,Coast Guard) to take my expired
ones. I think we eventually had someone at the Coast Guard station take
them. I would sure like to try them out, seems like when you have some
real trouble is a bad time to learn how to use them. PS I know you can
get white flares for practice.

rhys wrote:

On 5 Jul 2004 08:39:17 -0700, (Parallax) wrote:


Yesterday, I fired 4 expired "Orion" 12 guage flares. All four fired
but only one worked right. Results

expiration year results
1990 Worked correctly
1995 Fired but failed to ignite flare
1998 Fired and flare ignited but only went to 50'
altitude
1998 Fired but flare failed to ignite

2 Current flares: Fired and worked correctly.

Two years ago, on a very rainy New Yrs, I fired a bunch of expired
flares and all fired. However, the rain was so intense that I was
unable to determine if the flares ignited.

This test tells me that although old flares ussually fire, they do not
work well.


That's instructive, Parallax. Thanks.

FWIW, we hold a "flare-off" at our YC every couple of years as the
mandatory old ones pile up. We have to alert local water cops, the
adjacent island airport and the Coast Guard, lest they think there's
been a multi-boat pile-up G

R.