Photo: Airbus
Fighting wildfires is not for the weak of heart, and it also requires the best technologies at our disposal. That includes, in many cases, even aircraft, raining down water or retardant in an attempt to contain the flames.
Given the experience humans have had with such activities, one could say there isn't much we can do to improve the way in which to put out wildfires. Yet a European aircraft manufacturer called Airbus begs to differ.
In the summer of last year we learned about something called a firefighting demonstrator kit. Installed on an A400M Atlas aircraft for the first time back then, it is a piece of tech so simple and yet so effective it may change the game completely.
The kit is essentially a big tank installed in the rear of the aircraft, where the cargo hold is. It can hold up to 20,000 liters of water or fire retardant, more than enough to put out flames covering large distances.
At the push of a lever, the huge quantity of liquid is released in a single massive burst that lasts just ten seconds through a discharge pipe sticking out of the airplane's open rear door. It does so by no other means than gravity.
The numbers above are not unheard of in this business, but that's not all there is to the kit. The thing has been designed to be interchangeable, meaning it can be carried by all and any A400M airplane, and that without performing any modifications to the platform. What this does is essentially turn any such aircraft into an airborne fire engine.
The solution, one its maker calls a roll-on/roll-off kit thanks to its interchangeability, was once again put to the test this year in a ground and flight test campaign held in southwestern and central Spain.
Over a period of two weeks the system was put through its paces, conducting a total of six drops of both water and a red-colored retardant. During the runs, the Atlas managed to drop the stuff in such a manner it created "high concentration lines over 400 meters long on the ground."
We're told this was a new version of the kit that was tested in Spain, one that comes with an improved dropping efficiency and a discharge time reduced by as much as 30 percent compared to what we had last year. Translated into numbers, that means the 20 tons of firefighting substances are dropped to the ground in as much as seven seconds!
Add to that the fact the tank can be filled to capacity in just ten minutes when high-pressure pumps are deployed, and we have a hell of a firefighting tool on our hands. The downside is the plane carrying the system has to land for this operation to be completed.
Although more than a year has passed since the solution was first presented, Airbus still doesn't provide any details on when it could be ready for use in actual firefighting. And we all know, from the experience of past years, we'll need all the help we can get to do that.
In the summer of last year we learned about something called a firefighting demonstrator kit. Installed on an A400M Atlas aircraft for the first time back then, it is a piece of tech so simple and yet so effective it may change the game completely.
The kit is essentially a big tank installed in the rear of the aircraft, where the cargo hold is. It can hold up to 20,000 liters of water or fire retardant, more than enough to put out flames covering large distances.
At the push of a lever, the huge quantity of liquid is released in a single massive burst that lasts just ten seconds through a discharge pipe sticking out of the airplane's open rear door. It does so by no other means than gravity.
The numbers above are not unheard of in this business, but that's not all there is to the kit. The thing has been designed to be interchangeable, meaning it can be carried by all and any A400M airplane, and that without performing any modifications to the platform. What this does is essentially turn any such aircraft into an airborne fire engine.
The solution, one its maker calls a roll-on/roll-off kit thanks to its interchangeability, was once again put to the test this year in a ground and flight test campaign held in southwestern and central Spain.
Over a period of two weeks the system was put through its paces, conducting a total of six drops of both water and a red-colored retardant. During the runs, the Atlas managed to drop the stuff in such a manner it created "high concentration lines over 400 meters long on the ground."
We're told this was a new version of the kit that was tested in Spain, one that comes with an improved dropping efficiency and a discharge time reduced by as much as 30 percent compared to what we had last year. Translated into numbers, that means the 20 tons of firefighting substances are dropped to the ground in as much as seven seconds!
Add to that the fact the tank can be filled to capacity in just ten minutes when high-pressure pumps are deployed, and we have a hell of a firefighting tool on our hands. The downside is the plane carrying the system has to land for this operation to be completed.
Although more than a year has passed since the solution was first presented, Airbus still doesn't provide any details on when it could be ready for use in actual firefighting. And we all know, from the experience of past years, we'll need all the help we can get to do that.
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