Impressive Magiver. But I gotta ask, would that work against a wind swept, rampaging fire?
This says a lot. Thanks.
Figures. Thanks. Wonder what they did with their planes …
anywhere where people are already fighting them on the ground. Basically it’s just an atomizing of water so it provides more cooling effect. It’s a more efficient use of water allowing a given supply of it to go further. Would be interesting if an Ag plane could utilize the technique with waste pressure from a turbine engine. Not sure how close you can get to a fire with all the updrafts.
Oh, actually as it turns out there was an article that just came out today about the debacle with the BAE-146’s: Missoula's Neptune Aviation awaits next-gen air tanker contract decision. The Montana company actually has five of them but the Forest Service only has a funded contract for one. There’s another company in Nevada that has one more with a funded contract, but it has certification problems.
So, yeah, the problem isn’t finding the planes. There’s six brand-new (to them) jet slurry bombers mostly ready to go, it’s just that red tape is keeping five of them grounded. Fortunately right now the fire season is looking like it probably won’t be too bad (knock on non-inflamed wood), but hopefully if things do heat up they can speed things along. Sucks to be the company that bought all the planes, though!
no update on the ownership of N479EV. Still shows Evergreen. It’s a 100 series which is about as old as they get (1970). It’s seriously old. I can’t remember the last time I saw a one.
Not so odd. I haven’t seen the movie, but I understand the animators took pains to make the airplanes resemble real ones. While there are composites, the general shapes remain. The plane in the link resembles the Cessna AGtruck and the Piper Pawnee.
Here are some other options all in one vid. CL415, Mil-8, Air Tractor as mentioned above.
Watch the video again. There is foam mixed with the water. It isn’t just high pressure water.
Yes, but neither of those are on floats. It looks even more like an Air Tractor AT-802 Fire Boss conversion. When I saw the first preview for the movie, I thought that plane never got past the first prototype. I was stunned that the animators even knew about it. There are clearly a few more now, but still not many.
read the literature. It can be both.
The idea is to atomize the water as much as possible. Fine mist cools the area faster and heat is one of the conditions needed for fire. The video was a chemical fire.
Keep in mind that with big forest fires, the idea generally isn’t to extinguish the fire (which would be essentially impossible) but to contain it. That means that for the most part, they’re dropping water or retardant in the path of the fire not directly on it. The big reason why the Forest Service prefers retardant is that unlike water it doesn’t evaporate and so can be dropped at a safer distance from the fire. I’d imagine misted water would probably be even worse in that regard.
It could still be of some use in the limited situations where they do attack the fire directly like when they’re defending dwellings or putting out a fresh start, but not for most day-to-day firefighting.