Some wild pictures here, depicting a veritable sea of foam. These airplanes will definitely be clean after that, but will they work? For example, this page describes how to wash smaller planes, but is that how they wash the larger ones?..
Of course, there is another way, too:
"Aircraft assigned to the 403rd Wings of America's Air Force now have a new purpose-built wash system, which blasts 2,000 gallons of water per minute, emitting 150 pounds of pressure from each of its 40 nozzles" (image credit: 403 Wing)
Here is a cool turret method (here shown de-icing the plane):
Making all sci-fi punks in the world "feel lucky", since 2008
(for other weekly "Biscotti" issues - see our main page and monthly archives)
COMMENTS:
13 Comments:
Nils said...
First off great blog, it's one of the sites I visit daily!
But the pictures in this post of the hanger being filled with foam, are actuallly of the fire suppression system. It is designed to fill the hanger with fire retarding foam in the event of a fire.
I believe the first twelve pictures are fire-suppression foam tests / accidents. Then there's a shot of a pressure-rinsing system, a de-icing rig, and a flight crew scraping snow / ice off their aircraft.
Aircraft doused in fire-suppression foam aren't squeaky-clean. The stuff dries to a nasty film and can damage finishes, wiring, exposed bare metal, etc.
I've seen the photos of the fire-retardant foam incident before, but they're great photos and loved seeing them again. From memory the base is a USAF base in California and most of their aircraft were parked outside ready for training exercises. The day happened to be a fairly windy one as well. Also, the foam used is extremely corrosive. Naturally, most of the planes were touched by the foam, so all aircraft need at least a wash, and the ones closer to the hangar needed deeper maintenance.
I believe that the foam pictures are the result of fire-supressing foam. As seen in the pictures it suffocates the source before it can do any significant damage. I'm not sure how well it works as an aircraft cleaner, though I'm sure it takes quite a while to clean up.
Fun photographs, but from personal account (I am former USAF member), this is fire foam. "Bird baths" are more like a hose-rigged gantry that the jets drive through for their post-flight washes.
The very first photo happened like this: The hangar was equipped with a device for mixing soap concentrate and water for mopping the floor. The manager shouted to the man doing the work, "Don, turn off the machine." Don hears, "Don't turn off the machine." Thus, you get what we have here. It was a case study in the human factors course I got in the Air Force. There is also a picture of the hangar before it happened.
As for the string of photos from the hangar full of foam: That was a test, the intent was to operate the system momentarily to check its operation. Obviously, no-one planned that the system would refuse to shut off, hence the people on the maintenance stands climbing to save their hides. There is a video somewhere of it all happening.
The foam pictures are actually from an Air Force base just east of Rapid City, SD. You guys are right in that they were running a test 'fire' on the newly automated system when the system wouldn't shutdown. There are also pictures of one of the cameraman's truck parked outside that had his windows down, and after they opened the hangar doors to let the foam pour out it filled and covered the truck. I have the full set of pics on an external harddrive somewhere.
Haha! When did the incident happen at Ellsworth? I'd lived there 14yrs and hadn't heard of it. Love the B-1 very much. :D
I collect nose art of the b-1b lancer, trying to find images of all the various work. So when I saw the b-1b in the first image, I tried to determine which one it was. :P
Great article, but just for clarity's sake it should be stated that the ship in the last two pictures is clearly a hydrofoil, which is nothing at all like the ground effect aircraft the majority of the post describes.
The ekranoplan program and other commercial WiG (Wing in Ground-effect) projects were effectively scuttled by the discovery that rogue waves were not only real but much more common than had been believed, rendering cargo or passenger WiG vehicles at risk of destruction due to their inability to climb out of ground effect, where either a ship or a true aircraft would be able to survive/avoid the wave.
The photo of the Orlyonok carrying "2 tanks" is looks like a BTR-60, an Armored Personal Carrier (APC, a battlefield taxi). The important distinction being that an APC is smaller and weighs about a quarter what a tank of that era weighed (10 tons vs 40). Important when considering the Orlyonok's carrying capacity.
Pet peeve of mine when people call every rolling metal box a "tank".
This has been your Internet Pedant comment for the day.
I am still baffled by the lack of interest in these sort of craft...
The ability to increase shipping efficiency by unheard of numbers through the use of some large scale WIG would have a very profitable effect. Also, Russia achieved these feats during the Cold War, and mostly through their great insight into aeronautics. Despite what many may want to believe, Russian aircraft have generally always surpassed their western counterparts, only finding themselves beaten in ability when financial situations become involved (that being something the U.S. never had a problem with).
As for the crashes of ekranoplans that may cause many to hesitate their development, the poor avionics (something that Russia, during the Cold War, severely lacked) can be a good reason of crash. A western avionics system, I would imagine, could greatly improve the safety and performance of ekranoplans.
In the end of it all, it just leaves me confused as to why ekranoplans suffer this fate, I suppose this money people would gain just isn't enough to break down those West-East cultural boundaries. The Cold War is over people, please, get over it for the sake of much of scientific progress...
I'd never heard of these! They are so cool! I wish someone would start a line of plastic models (like the cars and airplanes I put together as a kid) of all of these - I'd certainly get into them (age 59, female, yes - geek). What an opportunity to provide some history and background with the model building instructions...
They are so adorable. I should know. I breed hedgehogs. So baby hedgehogs are a common sight in my house. YOu can visit my hedgehog website at hedgehogs4u.com. I am located in NC and I do not ship, so if you are interested please do not ask me to ship my hedgies. Thankyou!!!
I've never seen them when small before!! they like ugly no-fur dogs ^^
well, I'm from the north of Spain and i've hosted some hedgehogs at my garden, most of them as big as a hand or more. They never stayed with us mora than a few weeks but returned many times, no meaning about our german Shepard dog (they ate his food!!)
Once we found a really small one, not so bigger than the displayed on the article but with developed spikes. He probably was left by his mom. We tried to feed him but he died in 2 weeks.
The are wild animals; can´t hold in a place and have to live on their own, doing what they want, going where they feel like to.
Nice article! Wonderful site! I follow you daily.
PS: nice trick to touch them: rub them from head to back, they will relax spikes. And remember, no snails or slugs at home with a hedgehog around!
Hey Avi, what part of Canada are you from? I, myself, am from Vancouver. As far as blogs are concerned, I think I have some material on my blog that might be of interest to you every so often (I think you know that already, though). And it is exciting that you're getting 50,000 pageviews a day. I believe, of course, that if you simply provide good content, people will know where to get the goods.
We're from Calgary, and visit Vancouver quite often. Please write to the email provided, we'll stay in touch. I'd like to provide a place where people can submit and enjoy simply the best content in the universe ;) (... not counting digg and reddit, of course)
The Iranian women's air force rocks my socks off. As far as the "Women Keep Your Virtue" video is concerned, I'm posting that tonight. That's bloody awesome.
"QUANTUM SHOT" #175
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SFSite
13 Comments:
First off great blog, it's one of the sites I visit daily!
But the pictures in this post of the hanger being filled with foam, are actuallly of the fire suppression system. It is designed to fill the hanger with fire retarding foam in the event of a fire.
gtrz Nils
Was going to comment the same thing Nils said, the system released the foam by accident.
Nice pictures nevertheless!
Your blog is awesome.
However, the pic with the turret, isnt that a plane beeing de-iced?
I believe the first twelve pictures are fire-suppression foam tests / accidents. Then there's a shot of a pressure-rinsing system, a de-icing rig, and a flight crew scraping snow / ice off their aircraft.
Aircraft doused in fire-suppression foam aren't squeaky-clean. The stuff dries to a nasty film and can damage finishes, wiring, exposed bare metal, etc.
I've seen the photos of the fire-retardant foam incident before, but they're great photos and loved seeing them again. From memory the base is a USAF base in California and most of their aircraft were parked outside ready for training exercises. The day happened to be a fairly windy one as well. Also, the foam used is extremely corrosive. Naturally, most of the planes were touched by the foam, so all aircraft need at least a wash, and the ones closer to the hangar needed deeper maintenance.
Brilliant photographs!! How fun.
I believe that the foam pictures are the result of fire-supressing foam. As seen in the pictures it suffocates the source before it can do any significant damage. I'm not sure how well it works as an aircraft cleaner, though I'm sure it takes quite a while to clean up.
Fun photographs, but from personal account (I am former USAF member), this is fire foam. "Bird baths" are more like a hose-rigged gantry that the jets drive through for their post-flight washes.
The very first photo happened like this: The hangar was equipped with a device for mixing soap concentrate and water for mopping the floor. The manager shouted to the man doing the work, "Don, turn off the machine." Don hears, "Don't turn off the machine." Thus, you get what we have here. It was a case study in the human factors course I got in the Air Force. There is also a picture of the hangar before it happened.
As for the string of photos from the hangar full of foam: That was a test, the intent was to operate the system momentarily to check its operation. Obviously, no-one planned that the system would refuse to shut off, hence the people on the maintenance stands climbing to save their hides. There is a video somewhere of it all happening.
Thank you Jim, great info!
The foam pictures are actually from an Air Force base just east of Rapid City, SD. You guys are right in that they were running a test 'fire' on the newly automated system when the system wouldn't shutdown. There are also pictures of one of the cameraman's truck parked outside that had his windows down, and after they opened the hangar doors to let the foam pour out it filled and covered the truck. I have the full set of pics on an external harddrive somewhere.
Haha! When did the incident happen at Ellsworth? I'd lived there 14yrs and hadn't heard of it. Love the B-1 very much. :D
I collect nose art of the b-1b lancer, trying to find images of all the various work. So when I saw the b-1b in the first image, I tried to determine which one it was. :P
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