We have a new candidate for our collection Lame-Ass Ideas for suppressing wildfires. Bazalt, a Russian company that makes aircraft bombs, mortar bombs, and grenade launchers, has designed a bomb dropped by a military aircraft intended to put out a forest fire. It can detonate either on the ground or above it, and dispenses a liquid over 1,000 square meters, about 1/4 acre. Bazalt says one aircraft could carry up to 100 of these fire extinguisher bombs. A video HERE shows the contraption in action.
And we thought the hazards to a firefighter from the aerially delivered 2,000-pound containers of water were pretty significant. I would not want to be fighting a fire that is supported by aircraft dropping these bombs, but that’s just me. But there might be an application for them at haz-mat sites or burning nuclear power plants that are inaccessible to firefighters.
PCAD containers are dropped from a C-130 in a test at Yuma Proving Grounds. Photo by Mark Schauer
As we said on May 14, Caylym Technologies inexplicably continues to develop what they call a “precision container aerial delivery system” (PCAD) for suppressing wildfires. The system attempts to re-invent air tankers by dropping 200-gallon plywood/plastic containers of retardant or water, each weighing about 2,000 pounds, from a normally-configured C-130.
Now they are conducting some tests of the system at the Yuma Proving Grounds, mapping the ground distribution of the four-foot-square plywood skid boards, the cardboard boxes, and the 200-gallon plastic containers after a drop. We assume they will eventually set up a grid of measuring cups to map the coverage level of retardant, if they ever advance to that stage.
Geodetic surveyor Jerry Wells uses a GPS to map the ridiculous amount of debris dumped onto the ground after a test of the PCAD at Yuma Proving Grounds. Photo by Mark Schauer.
Caylym Technologies inexplicably continues to develop what they call a “precision container aerial delivery system” (PCAD) for suppressing wildfires. In fact, they recently issued a press release announcing that Canada issued a patent for their system, which involves shoving up to 14 containers of water or retardant, each weighing about 2,000 pounds, out the rear door of a C-130 aircraft. The 200 gallons of water are supposed to disperse from each of the paper containers, but in the photo above from their web site, it appears that at least one container seems to be hurtling toward the ground, possibly still full of liquid? It’s hard to tell, and it is the only photo found on their web site that shows the containers after they leave the aircraft.
Since they are so proud of their system, it seems odd that they don’t have videos on their web site showing one of the drops in progress.
If there is any chance in hell that a full 2,000-pound container would impact the ground, there is no way a firefighter could be within 1/2 mile of the drop. And even if there is a 100% guarantee that the containers will all empty, how much damage could even an empty container weighing 100 pounds do to someone on the ground? And then there’s the issue of finding and removing from remote locations the 14, 100-pound empty containers from each drop.
The company claims they could operate at night, primarily because the aircraft is equipped with GPS.
By utilizing modern aviation technology and GPS, these aircraft are capable of combating wildfires in mountainous terrain, at night, in very limited visibility. Think of the possibilities!
Yes. Just think. Please.
This becomes the latest addition to our lame-ass ideas category.
UPDATE June 28, 2010:
We found a “video” on YouTube about the system. It is actually a slide program, but it does show several photos in the drop sequence. It is still not possible to track each 2,300-pound water-filled container as they fall, to see if they are empty or full when they hit the ground. The empty containers weight 100 pounds each. The video was first posted on June 23, 2010.
A member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, Michael D. Antonovich, has what he feels is the solution to the wildfire problem: an automated fire detection system. According to the LA Times, Supervisor Antonovich stated:
The goal of a technology-based system would be to identify new fires as they start and have a programmed airborne response within minutes to suppress the fire before it spreads.
This brings up two issues:
1. Automated fire detection
There is nothing wrong with the concept of an automated fire detection system, in fact there are a number of them up and running around the world, primarily in very remote areas. But the detection of fires in a county with a population of almost 10 million is not the problem. I would venture a guess that with the millions of cell phones in L. A. County, that all fires are reported within minutes.
2. “Airborne response within minutes to suppress the fire before it spreads”
(Sigh) It appears that this is just another politician that thinks aircraft put out fires. The fire agencies already have a “programmed airborne response”. Under certain weather and fuel conditions, and when appropriate, aerial fire resources are dispatched along with ground units. And it takes boots on the ground to suppress a fire.
The L. A. County Board of Supervisors at their meeting today will consider Supervisor Antonovich’s proposal, and if accepted, the county’s Quality and Productivity Commission would be directed to study options and report back in four months.
The Los Angeles Times is reporting that the Board of Supervisors did decide yesterday to pursue the concept, and instructed the county’s Quality and Productivity Commission to look for technology that could detect wildfires so that they could be “put out within minutes of starting”. Their report is due in May.
John A. Hoffman, who appears to be associated with Fire Termination Equipment, Inc., has applied for a U. S. Patent for a very different type of air tanker. This air tanker would be an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that would be transported by a mother ship and released near the fire. It would then be piloted remotely from either the mother ship or from the ground, and after dropping retardant on the fire, would land to reload, or might be a single use aircraft and would be “destroyed in the release step”. In the latter case the UAV would be “possibly constructed of frangible material so as to crash into the fire area”.
The patent application includes two options for transporting one or more UAVs to the fire area.
Externally mounted to the aircraft to the “underbelly, side of the transport aircraft, or the like”.
“The present invention also contemplates that one or more UAVs can be placed within the transport aircraft, and either released from a rear exit, such as a B-727 having a rear opening door, or ejected from a side interface wherein the transport aircraft includes side-access doors fitted with a mechanism including rails or the like to move in position the UAV from inside of the transport aircraft to outside of the transport aircraft for launch or jettison.”
If this invention ever sees the light of day, which is EXTREMELY DOUBTFUL, firefighters will see air tankers crashing into the ground around them as the aircraft are “destroyed in the release step”. And this would be a benefit to firefighters, the public, and the environment how, exactly? I can’t even imagine what the cost per drop would be of a system like this. And then there are the indirect costs of removing the wreckage, repairing the environmental damage, and payment of the death benefits to the families of any firefighters that might be killed by the crashing aircraft.
As we said earlier, the inventor, Mr. Hoffman, appears to be associated with Fire Termination Equipment, Inc., according to the patent application. The company has an unusual and very vague idea to develop a Rapid Aerial Inferno Neutralization System (RAIN) that, according to the web site:
…delivers massive payloads (of artificial rain) to fires with surgical precision, and it can be deployed 24/7 and in any weather, including winds and smoke.
This RAIN system may be the same one that is described in the patent application, but the web site offers no details about how it would work. The site does have a some information about experiments conducted with small UAVs.
We put these concepts into our “lame-ass ideas” category.
Velocity FireForce's truck-mounted dry chemical system. Photo: Velocity FireForce
That headline might be a little optimistic, but Velocity FireForce has invented a method for applying very large quantities of a dry chemical with the objective of suppressing wildfires.
Their web site (warning–a video will start automatically; the same video as above) does not provide any details about what the chemical is, or what the environmental effects would be. Aside from the environmental issues, many wildland fires occur during wind events, which would be very problematical for applying what amounts to dust.
We have a new candidate for our collection Lame-Ass Ideas for suppressing wildfires. Bazalt, a Russian company that makes aircraft bombs, mortar bombs, and grenade launchers, has designed a bomb dropped by a military aircraft intended to put out a forest fire. It can detonate either on the ground or above it, and dispenses a liquid over 1,000 square meters, about 1/4 acre. Bazalt says one aircraft could carry up to 100 of these fire extinguisher bombs. A video HERE shows the contraption in action.
