Aerial wild firefighting : Suppression of water loss and Enhancement of crew safety
Name of the provider (company name or main contact name), or FIRE IN ID ? R-SUP, Lyon-France Contact: Bertrand LUN
CCC addressed
Scope, rationale, context: general description. Precise here if this technology is currently use (eg. company name or contact info) Presently the widely in use and efficient protocol in aerial wild firefighting is the water drop according to the cascade like procedure. This protocol requires a low altitude drop (100-120ft) in order to minimize the in-flight water loss by evaporation. This in-flight water loss is proportionnal to the plane speed and altitude and could be as high as 40% !!! As it is mandatory to perform a low altitude drop, it is not possible to operate aerial firefighting by night. Wildfires are more and more frequent and intense, then it becomes mandatory to involve safer and less water loss procedures. The goals of our proposed innovation is to avoid such water waste and to enhance crew safety.
If applicable, choose the relevant working group (Ctrl touch to select more than one)
Please select the relevant item
Short description of the solution. Technical details if relevant. Keywords.
This innovation enable :
1. Total suppression of in-flight water loss.
2. Better targetting the focused zone.
3. Higher safety for the plane and crew.
4. Possibilty to process drop by night
5. Suitable for any military transport airplanes ; no need of specific planes.
6. Better pooling of aerial wild firefighting capacities in EU
TRL of the proposed solution - Innovation stage (if applicable) 5-6: Technology Developement & Demonstration
Expected/scheduled future developments
Our innovation was preliminary tested in laboratory by the Ceren-Fr and the results support the Proof of Concept of the protocol.
We are presently looking for parteners and official supports to organize real situation evaluation aiming to move from the Proof of Concept step to the Routine uses in futur wild firefighting operations.
This solution should be considered as an realistic option to enable to increase quickly additionnal capacities of aerial wild firefighting without investing in additionnal new amphibous planes.
Generic comments