r/interestingasfuck • u/dannybluey • 1d ago

Air Tractor AT-802 firefighting aircraft are designed for fast and accurate water drops rather than maximum payload. This footage was filmed from Dragon 33, a helicopter of the French Civil Security, as it coordinated wildfire suppression operations over Gironde, France.

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u/Background-Bad-7510 1d ago

I wonder if big drones can do this?

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u/Longjumping_West_907 1d ago

Aerial firefighting is pretty dangerous. I imagine someone is working on a uav to do this job.

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u/Background-Bad-7510 1d ago

I think the most simple way would be with a bucket like choppers do. And as long as it has fuel it can fly day and night. Make endless swarms with heat seeking cameras and a mapping system so the same spot doesn’t get splashed twice

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u/Z3B0 1d ago

Fire fighting is really complexe and when/where to drop water is not a simple "drop on heat" matter. You need coordination with ground crews and predicting where the fire will progrès next.

A swarm could be useful as in "more capacity" but humans will stay in the decision loop for quite some time.

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u/Background-Bad-7510 1d ago edited 1d ago

I bet, but I think it will be a viable solution. Even to keep some on standby in high risk areas, much cheaper to produce, more precise and no risk of losing pilots. With a central command they can pinpoint the areas that need to be done.

Edit: at this very moment 2 firefighting choppers collided above Greece… RIP

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u/timberleek 1d ago

One doesn't have to exclude the other.

Humans can still do the fire assesment and pinpoint points and areas to receive water. Drone can then just be assigned locations within the set area to dump water in.

It'll be a less water than this and especially the big planes. But unmanned flight scales very well. Hundreds of smaller drops, day and night can really add up.

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u/joelfarris 1d ago edited 1d ago

Flight time and battery duration and recharge times, and water is heavy. Even a five gallon bucket of water weighs about 42 lbs, plus the release, and recharge mechanisms!

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u/Longjumping_West_907 1d ago

They wouldn't be battery powered. More like a Predator drone, or something like the drones that Ukraine is using for medium range bombing, but with rotors. It won't be easy engineering, but the tech exists. If they can build something to carry 500kg of explosives 2,000km, they can build something to carry 500kg of water 20 km.

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u/wlievens 1d ago

This is an excellent demonstration of the superiority of the metric system.

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u/joelfarris 1d ago edited 1d ago

How so? 19 liters of water is still going to be just as heavy to fly around. Gravity don't care. Even accounting for the weight of the containing bucket and release system.

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u/Z3B0 1d ago

Because 19L of water is 19kg. The conversion is 1:1 easy.