Pilots and Ignitors

NAO manufactures Flare Pilots for all types of Flares: Enclosed, Elevated, Ground, Open-Pit, etc. Our original Flare Pilot design came from NAO inspiriting gas burner technology which was tested in the oil fields, refineries & petrochemical plants of Texas before WWII (World War 2).

NAO continues to improve our pilot design. In the late 1970’s with a few simple advancements to our pilot windshield, we tested and proved our pilots raining and windproof for wind speeds of 250 MPH (400Km/Hr).

Later work in steel plants (blast furnaces) and especially the coke ovens with their extremely dusty, dirty, sticky tar environment lead to further features to prevent “fallout” from fouling or plugging the pilot piping and venturi. These new features added for the steel mills proved such an improvement that they were added to all flare pilots.

One example of NAO flare pilot performance was at a major refinery in Mexico, the plant had replaced their old flare tip, which was manufactured by one of our competitors, with a new NAO high performance smokeless flare tip with dual ignition pilots. When they started the ignition control panel for the first time, all three (3) pilots light up and were proven by thermocouples green lights in about 10 seconds.

The operators could not believe this speed, since the old “Brand X” flame-front ignitor took them several hours of adjusting the gas/air and 3 ways valves to light the three pilots.  Since the plant was still shutdown for plant maintenance, one operator climbed to the top of the 225′ tall derrick and confirmed that all the pilots were burning. The plant has now added the dual ignition requirement to their flare specifications as a standard.

NAO flare pilots are available in standard sizes and lengths of 1 1/4″ diameter Conservation Pilot, 2″ diameter Heavy Duty Pilot and 3″ High Capacity or Extended Length Pilot with the venture at distances of 400′.