Nowadays it's HALON ( aka Chloroflorocarbons bromides I think ) , same agent for Engine & Cargo hold. proc is like what u described..still same.
Boeing has levers for pulling, Airbus system is press button type. 2 agent each, except for APU, only one bottle.
as u can see from pic here.
my 0.02chimes
oh btw, thanks for explaining what a NOOB is. haha..that's me alright! (wink)
Originally posted by Meia Gisborn:
Most modern commercial airliners are equipped with fire suppression systems that dump a fire retardant right into the engine core.
I do not know how the system is set up on the current generation of airliners (and perhaps megatron can chime in on this), but the 737-100 that my dad used to fly had two pressurized Freon bottles located in the wheel well that could discharge their contents into either engine or the APU. On the flight deck, there were three red fire handles (one for each engine and one for the APU) atop the instrument panel just behind the throttle quadrant. Pulling the handle armed the system; rotating the handle counterclockwise discharged the first CO2 bottle into the selected engine or APU, and rotating it clockwise discharged the second bottle.
Edit: Corrected position of fire handles.
[/quote]