Using a 747 to Fight Wildfires

RotJ writes "It's fire season again. And the government just grounded 33 aging air tankers on Monday due to safety issues. Looking for a modern solution, Evergreen Aviation has come up with a 747 supertanker with 24,000 gallons of tank space onboard, which allows it to cover seven times the area of today's largest existing airtanker. In addition to fighting fires, it will be able to contain oil spills and 'perform challenging homeland security missions' like neutralizing chemical or biological attacks. And think of how many John Goodmans you could cover with fire retardant. Be sure to watch the videos."

Comments

Speed

[JohnHegarty]

How much can you slow down a 747.... would it no make it hard to hit the target at 600mph

Re:Speed

[valiko]

Check this thread well... read the first reply in this thread. US forestries banned the use of IL-76 firefighter, which is twice smaller than 747, how would 747 be any different??? Il-76 payload is 11,000 gallons, pretty good too

Re:Speed

[dkt5]

And for those of you who didnt have a look at the site (especially the naysayers), and for the less observant who actually watched the videos:

1. They already tested it, and it does appear to work reasonably well.

2. The pilot calls out the altitude of 5200 before one of the test drops (unless my ears deceive me).

Re:Speed

[elcapitan]

yeah, but you can't take a 747 up the feather river canyon in california and draw a line along a high tight ridge that keeps the fire from racing up the canyon further. sure, you could deluge the whole canyon in red mud but why?

the problem is a few companies not maintaining their planes and the rest suffer because of it...

Refills?

[MrIrwin]

I know one feature of firefighting planes such as the Canadair is the ability to refill by skimming the surface of a lake or the sea.

Somehow I can't envisage this with a 747, and how many 747 sized airstrips do you find near forestry areas?

Re:Refills?

[System.out.println()]

So if I understand correctly... if one engine goes out the plane is pretty much screwed?

Or does the "maximum payload" take that sort of thing into account?

Re:Refills?

[Rolo Tomasi]

Beriev makes amphibious planes, some of which are designed for firefighting. The Be-200 has about 1/7th of the water capacity of the 747 mentioned in the article, but it can scoop up water during touch-and-go on a lake or river. It can also land on a lake or river to refuel (you'd just have to get a fuel truck near to where the fire is, and the plane could operate there all day). The 747 would have to fly to a big airport (needs a long runway), and this airport would have to be situated next to a body of water, or have some other kind of huge water reservoir. IMHO this looks highly impractical vs. an amphibian plane.

Re:Refills?

[Ozan]

So instead of scuba divers found dead of falling injuries, we get legends about people drowned in the middle of deserts?

It doesn't rain often in the desert, but when it rains it can be pretty tough. Actualy more people die of drowning in the desert than of thirst.

Re:Refills?

[TheLink]

"My guess is that when you can carry 24,000 gallons (90000L) of water, you don't have to refill very often."

Yeah, but how long does it take to refill it?

And wouldn't the forest service object because it's too much water?

I mean they objected to the Russian planes coz:
"The plane is "too costly and lacks ability to make downhill drops, a necessary maneuver in fighting fires in the mountains. It actually drops too much water."

The russian planes carry 11,000 gallons of water AND they have a proven track record in fire fighting, unlike the 747 "solution" which seems to be a kludge.

Re:Refills?

[confused one]

As the water falls, it tends to break up into droplets (aka rain) due to aerodynamic forces. It would not stay in one large mass.

The plane would have no way to dump it all at once. It would pump it out just as if it was dumping the water over a fire. Firefighters working a forest fire get dumped on ocassionally.

You would get VERY wet; and, you might actually be swept away by a sudden rush of water (along the ground)... But, unless you fell and hit your head on something, you wouldn't be killed.

How Slow

[PingPongBoy]

do you need to go if you want to water a forest, which is not large compared to the flight range of a 747?

Then again, in a flight simulator I've flown the 747 straight up so you could approach the burn and then climb hard while dropping the water.

What effect does this kind of dump do to the aerodynamics?

Re:How Slow

[Anonymous Coward]

I've flown the 747 straight up
I am a pilot.
What on Earth do you mean by "straight up"? That is a term I associate with my drinks and not any way I fly a plane.
Did you mean you flew it at full power/go around power?
Did you mean you flew it in a clean configuration?
Did you mean that you pulled the nose up ~15 degrees and could no longer see the horizon and thus concluded that you were flying vertically?
Are you suggesting that a 747 can fly straight up like an F15? If so then the burn you were aproaching was in they sky? or was it that after the stall you were facing the burn?

Next week we can argue pitch vs. power.

There is of course the giant Russian water bomber

[njh]

This "11,000-gallon tanker plane pours 'too much water,'". I guess 24,000 gallons (90000L) is not too much though...

Our govs' been spending its money on coke, again!

[t_allardyce]

After watching a programme last night on a (mockup) terrorist attack on london (about 2000 people died when a chlorine tanker was blown up) i want one of these for stopping chemical attacks! apparently we have 1 air-ambulance for the whole city and a fraction of the police have chemical/biological training and equipment and the tube staff have nothing except some training that said "get everyone out of the nearest exit as fast as you can" wow i think i might become an emergency training consultant, i could make millions!

Popular Science

[xplosiv]

One of the latest Popular Science articles talked about a new(?) type of plane which is a combination of a helicopter and a jet (so it has rotors and jet engines), so it can take off almost anywhere, but get up to almost mach 1 if I remember correctly. The hauling capacity is enormous, one of the scenarios they showed was for fire fighting. Unfortunately, I was unable to remember the url of the manufacture, or find the article on popsci.com, I am sure someone else here knows the model name.

Re:Popular Science

[ericspinder]

I love Popular Science as well, but almost all of their "forward-looking" inventions are vaporware. Sometimes, I think, their qualification for story submission is a good color drawing of the "product" and lots of hype about how the worlds going to change because of it in 2 to 6 years. For how many years now have they been saying "flying cars are right around the corner". I am not saying that they are always wrong (or every fraudulent), their coverage on new products and (working) prototypes is good, but just don't count on anything that needs an "artist rendering", like the fire-fighting plane you (apparently) saw in that mag.

Is this related to CIA using Evergreen...

[talldark]

There is old testimony relating CIA / Pacificorp with selling off Aircraft to the private sector to combat firefighting. Wonder if this is a cleanup operation to retire the "suspicious" planes

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/fo re st_service_c130s.html

Firefighter for the Forest Service for 5 years

[Anonymous Coward]

And here's the thing, once a fire gets to the size that you start thinking about dropping 24,000 gallons of water on it, YOU'VE ALREADY LOST! Water sure as hell ain't stopping it, unless it happens to be in the form of a severe rainstorm, and even then fires can burn underground for months. There were fires in Yellowstone that started in late fall, got snowed on, smolderd the entire winter underground and then reemerged the next spring.

What the Forest Service needs to do, and to their credit seem to at least be aware of on the ground (at least from my personal experience), is have quick response helicopters that can get to fires before they have blown up (read, still under 100 acres, give or take). Once a fire gets much bigger than say 1000 acres, it starts to create its own weather - at this point, the effort becomes more one of 'figure out where the wind will push the fire and get the hell out of the way!'

The only possible use I see for this plane, and one in which it is probably well-suited for, is in protecting man made structures from large, fast moving fires. Let's say there was a fire bearing down on Denver and threatening a rather pricey subdivision. This plane would be perfect for that job - they could load it up with fire retardant and create a huge 'wet line' in front of the subdivision. Maybe make a couple drops and you would be golden. My guess is that's what they have in mind, but I could be wrong.

Re:Firefighter for the Forest Service for 5 years

[kidgenius]

You do realize that 1000 acre fire is small right? There are about 640 acres in a square mile. And fighting fires of 1000 acres is nothing. It's relatively easy. Hell, if fires stayed to 1000 acres (about a mile and a half square) , the forest service would be fighting those without any trouble. You'd be amazed at how big fires get and they still get put out by human intervention.

Re:Firefighter for the Forest Service for 5 years

[Anonymous Coward]

From my personal experience, 50 acres (give or take of course) is about the threshold between a small manageable fire, and a larger, 'project' type fire. Maybe you've never been on a real fire before? I don't know. The 50 acre fires that I have been on have involved large numbers of engine, multiple helicopters, and lots of support personell, not to mention the people digging line and dropping trees. Get to 1,000 acres and you can EASILY justify calling in smokejumpers or a shot team from NIFC. When I was working (late 90's), the going rate for a jumper team was about $1 million per DAY! If you call that an EASY fire, more power to you chief!

50 acres of fire is a site to behold, 1,000 acres would blow most people's minds.

The largest I have seen in person is about 75,000 acres. The fire was whipping up fire tornados, trees were blowing up left and right (literally exploding) and flame lengths were close to 100 vertical feet. There is little, if anything people can do to fight fires like this directly. The best bet in such situations is to dig a huge fire break with dozers way in front of the fire, and maybe lay down wet line with the help of large air tankers (such as the 747 mentioned in the article). If you're lucky the weather will cooperate and the fire will eventually burn itself out. I wouldn't consider this 'putting it out' so much as 'averting further destruction.'

Anyway, I'm in cube farm land now, so about all I can do is relive the glory days. Maybe those still involved can speak directly to the issue, but chances are they are the lucky ones without internet access ;-)

Re:There is of course the giant Russian water bomb

[Analogy Man]

One thing the Russians are good at is making things tough. Their design philosophy on military aircraft (including their fighters) is to make them robust to hostile environments including unimproved runways etc. On the surface this looks like a far more economical model using either the Russian or Canadian equipment than to retrofit some used up aircraft not designed for anything like this mission.

Use the right tool for the job

[EulerX07]

Bombardier CL415

Check the description and FAQ here.

Retrofitting a 747 for firefighting? Why not buy a plane designed from the ground off for firefighting purposes? It can drop 32000 to 65000 gallons of water between refueling. In real life situation it has proven to be able to deliver up to 30 000 gallons per hour.

Ever since I was a kid I'd seen videos of CL215 (the predecessor) fighting the big forest fires, and I was always wondering why the US used small choppers carrying minuscule payloads of water to fight the fires. Can anyone clear this up?

Re:There is of course the giant Russian water bomb

[EinarH]

A very interesting article indeed, I read something similar on USENET but this one is more extensive. As somone said; it's all about two things:
1. The NIH, Not Invented Here-syndrome and
2. Money.

In addition to his work for BLM, Lamun heads the Interagency Airtanker Board that represents air tanker contractors and federal firefighting agencies. It is responsible for setting criteria for air tankers and overseeing the certification process.

Am I the only one that can see a clear conflict of interest situation in this case? The same guy in both a "criteria role" and as representative for contractors (both private and federal)...

Ten bucks that The Forest Service will abandon it's "too much water" policy when a US-company comes up with a US-built plane doing the exact same thing as these Ilyushins. And that despite the advantages of the Ilyushins like better maneuverability, reduced cost and shorter takeoff.

Re:There is of course the giant Russian water bomb

[dj51d]

I couldn't agree with you more, however, the US seems to suffer from a major case of Not Invented Here Syndrome. At one point in time, the Alaskan legislature appropriated funds to purchase two Canadair fire bombers, and the state's top fire fighting official wouldn't let the purchase go through, claiming they would do no good in Alaska. Some progress is being made, Hawkins and Powers, one of the major contractors is in negotiations to buy several of the Russian Be-200's. The problem is, the US Forest Service has stated they won't contract Be-200's because they don't have a US Type Certificate. Oh, BTW, I'm from Minnesota, one of the two states that has realized the value of a purpose-built fire bomber(North Carolina being the other has a single Canadair CL-215), we have 2 Canadair CL-215's protecting our property and forests.

Fire Retardant Smart Bombs

[K-Man]

I came up with this idea a couple of years ago, after a few in-flight disintegrations of air tankers. The idea is that the JDAM kit can drop anything on a dime, costs less than $20k, and could probably cost a lot less in a non-military configuration.

There are actually a lot of pros that I didn't think about initially. Besides the safety problem with diving into fire zones, there's also a fuel problem, since each climb out consumes almost as much as taking off. This constraint reduces the weight capacity of each mission -- many tankers seem to fly with only a fraction of their rated weight.

The ability to load a plane up to its full capacity with retardant, fly to a fire area, and make repeated, accurate drops from high altitude, without running out of gas, seems like a major plus to me. There are also benefits in being able to make "quick response" drops, eg from Smoke Jumper aircraft, with less risk.

Re:I've had these things fly over my house

[Monkey]

I live in the Yukon, Canada. We have forest fires here all summer long. We usually contract a squadron of Air Spray's B-26 Invaders for fire supression services. It's an awesome sight watching a dozen of these things take off from the base to head out to a fire. You can really imagine what it must have been like in WWII when these same aircraft would have been heading out on a bombing mission over Europe.