Airbus Helicopters are offering a revolutionary approach to aerial fire-fighting techniques
Benoit Terral, Operational Marketing Manger, Aerial Work, at Airbus Helicopters, tells International Fire Buyer about how they are adding a new dimension to wildfire fighting Tell us about your role at Airbus Helicopters. I have been at Airbus Helicopters for five years in the operational marketing department. I am a former pilot and I’m in charge of aerial work missions. Inside that area, we focus on a lot of things, including wildfires. I have been trained by the French fire brigade, and I have a lot of contacts and partnerships within that organisation, especially in the South-East of the country, where wildfires are very common. Airbus are normally associated with passenger aircraft. Tell us more about the fire-fighting and helicopter sides of the business. We are the leader in the civilian helicopter market. All our aircraft are designed for civilian use first and can then be converted to military and other uses afterwards. The main point of our design is versatility, so we have helicopters that can perform five or six different missions in one day – fire-fighting in the morning, EMS or transport in the afternoon, for example. We have versatile aircraft. We have the most comprehensive range of helicopters in the world, with something like 14 different aircraft, ranging from 1.5 tonnes to 11 tonnes. Due to this, we usually have an answer to any situation, especially in the fire-fighting market. For that market we have two different aircraft. If you want to drop under 2.5 tonnes of water, then you use a light helicopter that is more versatile. The main additional advantage is that you can employ an on-scene commander, who can offer a view from the sky to manage the fire and report back to men on the ground. With a lighter helicopter you can drop up to one tonne of water, which is ideal for tackling smaller, less developed fires. For the main fire, we use much bigger helicopters. For this, we have designed a very special tool – the four tonne Internal Kit, which brings fire brigades something completely new for fighting large wildfires, not only in terms of productivity in fighting the fire. It means fire-fighters can drop four tonnes of water in a very innovative way by using pressure for a concentrated ‘gun’ effect on the ground. It has been proven to be more efficient than fixed-wing methods (better ground footprint). In France we have a large fixed-wing presence through Canadair and TRACKER, operated through a squadron of the French Security Institute. While fixed-wing fire-fighting is popular, it is very expensive; especially if you consider that the planes will only operate for a couple of months each year and spend the rest of the time sitting in a hangar. This model is no longer viable, especially in Europe. Helicopters will be a solution for at least the next decade largely because they are so versatile. At the end of the wildfire season, they can be used for all manner of other operations. Helicopters can offer not just efficiency but also productivity: They are able to pick up water from anywhere – everything from small pools and lakes to seas and large bodies of water. The helicopter is fitted with a hose and a pump, and its manoeuvrability means it can pick up water more efficiently than a fixed-wing plane. We tested this in a real-life situation, as we always do with our products, on the French island of Corsica in 2007, which experiences many wildfires. In terms of productivity and efficiency, there is no comparison. The major difference between fixed-wing and rotary winged aircraft is that you can manage your speed better with a rotary wing. Managing speed means you can improve the accuracy of the dropping as well as the picking up of the water. In strong winds, and in the South of France we have something called the Mistral wind, rotary wings mean you can drop water very efficiently on the fire. Is improving efficiency the main benefit to using rotary wings? The use of fixed wing is interesting for the capacity. In the US, they use very large aircraft to drop water – converted 747s and so on. The time between locations (picking up the water and dropping it on the fire) can be as much as three or four hours. As a rule, the sooner you can drop water on the fire, the less you will need, and that’s why we advocate the use of helicopters. You can use a helicopter in a very restrictive area, which means the time taken between picking up and dropping the water can be as little as a matter of minutes (you are then more productive!). In France, the fire-fighting strategy is to target new fires, even if they are already battling a much bigger one. If a new fire is detected elsewhere, they send as many resources as possible to put out the smaller fire before returning to the original one. Tell us more about the versatility of converting fire-fighting helicopters to cargo or transport ones. It’s very simple. All our aircraft have the capability to change from a passenger transport capacity to a cargo one in ten minutes or so. You can then use it to bring equipment directly to where it’s needed. You can change the mission straight from dropping water to transporting fire-fighters to moving equipment to surveillance all with one aircraft. Are there any other drawbacks, aside from the fact you can’t transport as much water in one go as with a fixed-wing plane? When transporting liquid, the centre of gravity on a helicopter can be affected. This is something we have tried to combat on the Internal Kit that I mentioned earlier. We’ve drawn on dynamic stability technology from super tankers, and have studied the safest way to transport it. Four tonnes of water on an eight tonne helicopter is a big load compared to a fixed-wing, where the disparity between the two isn’t as
