Badger Belly Tank

[100ft]

Yesterday I was flipping past Discovery channel and on Daily Planet there was a 5 minute story on the new technology 'Badger' belly tank. This item was being tested in BC by a Tundra medium and apparently suceeds in mimizing difusion of the dropped load on its way to the surface. Essentially it is designed to drop the load more like a 300 gal water balloon than the traditional tapered drop leaving the trail of mist (like a meteor) behind and detracting from the main drop.

My question here: Is it not somewhat beneficial to have some degree of tapered drop to offer some fencing effect to an advancing fire or is this new paradigm far and away better than the old method? The commentator described this advanced feature as the 'secret weapon' of forest fire fighting about to be unleased. A flare drop would also seem to accomplish this effect anyway; wouldn't it?

One impressive feature mentioned though was the 10 gal/sec fill rate for this tank.

Teach me.

 

[sharky]

Ya, that seemed quite interesting. The designer stated that the traditional tapered drop, with all the mist, only put about 60% of the water on the ground, whereas their product (with full length dump doors)released all 300 gal in 1 second into what he called a 'giant raindrop'

What's the timeline like on getting something like that approved? What would some of the hoops and hurdles be?

 

[graunch1]

The tank is designed by Tower Aerospace in YYC as the owner was shown in that clip. I was channel surfing and saw his face long enough to think " hey I know him". Followed quickly by: "I know him, and he has been trying to get this tank system up and running for a while". He has had a running battle with TC ever since he started his company years ago so I don't know how long this project toook. Tower has also built some fuel tanks for DnD Helis.

 

[4961]

Badgers?

 

[graunch1]

don't know enough about it to say what it is called