When an abandoned C-130 needs a bath, who ya gonna call?

aksounder (57)in #life • 7 years ago

If you read my introduction post you likely noticed I have an interesting job. I love what I’m able to do for a living and we do a large amount of training to keep all our skills sharp.

However, sometimes in the day-to-day a task out of the ordinary is asked of you. This is the “other duties as assigned” part of the job description. It turns out an aircraft salvage company was coming to strip a long abandoned C-130 and asked if we could rinse the years of dirt, moss, and grime off the exterior. I thought it was a perfect opportunity to share some pictures with the Steemit community of the awesome apparatus I get to drive for work every day.

Beauty and the beast

Parking the Oshkosh Striker 4500 next to the C-130 I’m not sure which is more impressive: the fact that giant thing can get into the air or that my fire truck doesn’t look that much smaller. This Striker is equipped with an HRET (High Reach Extendable Turret), which makes easy work for reaching the top of the fuselage. It obviously has many uses in combating an aircraft fire, but today it makes a perfect C-130 shower.

In this picture you can see some of the controls for the suppression system: a water gauge to keep an eye on how much firefighting agent you have, color and IR camera, touch screen control for the HRET, manual control for the HRET, and two joysticks for controlling the turrets. These are just a small number of controls and switches that the operator must have memorized and be able to use by muscle memory at a moment’s notice.

It’s important to always keep your truck fully equipped to respond, so after rinsing off the aircraft I head to the nearest hydrant. I uncap the fill port, grab a hydrant wrench, connect a Storz coupling to the hydrant, then run a 5-inch hose between the hydrant and truck. The Storz couplings are a great piece of equipment that makes connections quick and easy; instead of needing to get threads lined up just right and spinning away, these have an obvious alignment and connect with a quarter turn.

When you use most of the water in a truck that carries 4,500 gallons it can take a while to fill it back up. With both the HRET nozzle and the bumper turret dispensing water at high flow simultaneously, you can empty the full tank in about three minutes. That’s why being mindful of your agent use in a real incident is very important.

Now, in the spirit of @papa-pepper I leave you with this.