Fun fact: the dumping speed has to be carefully calculated as to not reduce the aircrafts weight too much too quickly. If it dumped too much water too fast the plane will “bounce” in the air and it can actually rip the wings off, or cause other non-catastrophic damage to the fuselage. A fire fighting c130 ripped off both of its wings many years ago partly due to fatigue cracks in the wing attachment points, which grew large due to the rapid reduction in weight when dumping.
It's not an issue of "reducing weight too quickly" ... it's that the aircraft needs to remain within its center of gravity (CG) envelope while doing it. As far as having compromised wing spars - that's a whole other issue.
@Torynn Opheim Well...if you date a girl to watch netflix...after a few minuts without any activity on screen there is a message, ¿are u still watching?
I've always thought a really entertaining airshow act would be to have the warbird act with pyrotechnics (simulated bombs) deliberately set a fire, maybe the grass, maybe a pile of old pallets. Then a fire-bomber, ideally something like this, swoops in and puts it out. The announcer playing along as though this were unintentional and problematic until the fire bomber comes in and "saves the day."
@@elijaha773 Don't do it when there's extreme fire danger and all the firebombers are busy doing real work, obviously. Likewise don't have an airshow during a pandemic. There have been, and I hope will be again, times less desperate than these. It would basically be a medium to large bonfire, something that isn't uncommon nor dangerous if done with proper precautions. Something that could easily be handled by ground-based fire crews if the fire bomber doesn't succeed in putting it out, and will be prepared in such a way that the fire would be contained and wouldn't spread to anywhere it could do damage.
I got to tour this airplane at KBFI Seattle a couple of years ago. It was truly impressive to see the tank and plumbing systems and have the computer system explained for perfect CG drops.
@@alph5230 old? No, it has had it's systems completely remade from the ground up and it has been redesigned countless times, Bad? Holy fuck no, where the hell did you read that. The 747 is one of the best if not THE best cargo hauler in the world, hell, it has performed much better than A380 commercially.
Though I am currently flying B737-8NG, but I still admire this beautiful, excellently design aeroplane. I used to call it a humble giant whenever I entered its cockpit.
They must have anti-sloshing baffles or something like it in there like rockets have. All that weight knocking all over the place is enough to bring even a craft as powerful as a 747 down.
They may have baffles like in fuel tanks, but they generally fill the tanks entirely so the water or retardant doesn't have room to slosh around. It is carefully balanced around the center of gravity such that even while it is emptied there is minimal change in the CoG.
its definitely a design consideration for the avionics, since they would have to have systems that do the same thing but with fuel if you think about it
I just saw this aircraft in Anchorage Alaska now owned by National Airlines and reconfigured as a freighter. At least its still in the super tanker paint livery. Its terrible the forest service canceled its contracts and then we had such a terrible fire season this past summer and fall
Looking at this makes me feel bad for the places that have drought and water shortage..but then again this is also to save lives. Just so much water for testing.
I know practically nothing about aircraft, but how do they keep one of these on level flight when they suddenly drop all that water out of her. Does the centre of gravity shift when they drop the load?
Odds are they have multiple tanks that are used, and they just adjust the speed of the pumps to keep the center of gravity the same. I wanna say its exactly the same as what the fuel plane does when refueling fighter jets
As long as the tanks are symmetrical to the Center of Gravity the pitch should not change. The only thing that changes is that the aircraft would start to climb, because the gravitational force becomes lower than the lifting force generated by the wings. And I assume to counteract this effect they re-trim the aircraft. Correct me if im wrong, thats just my educated guess
I think that I would be more efficient if two tanker aircraft pass almost together, because the first drop don´t attack too much over the fire but if you drop water almost inmediatelly of the first one, the second drop of water will have more impact over the fire. Maybe the first tanker could be a little aircraft such as C130 and then as second tanker the B747.
Hmmm, interesting. I am curious how slow (and I mean slow) this Global Supertanker can fly while in a run to drop all that water?? I'm thinking, the slower the better for fire suppression??
OK...and wow...that would be around 166mph-172mph. That's really fast for emptying the tanks. To be really effective, it would take a fleet of these Global Supertankers to be really effective in those recent fires in Pacific USA. Tragic events over there.
Nice stunts.....where they will stand , how much time it will take them to reach zones like forest fire zones etc etc....just showing we are innovative but not even cover 40% cost efficiency.......
