All language subtitles for Impossible Engineering s10e05 Firefighting Sky Giant.eng

In today's impossible engineering.

It is very large, very fast. It is an
amazing machine.

The largest firefighting aircraft on the
planet.

It's certainly in a league of its own.

Nothing compares to it.

I'm amazed by the engineering.

It looks like a mad scientist
experiment.

And the pioneering historic innovations.

This is really amazing. You can see that
the fire has just stopped dead in its

tracks.

That may be impossible, possible.

Wildfire is one of the greatest threats
our planet is facing.

Destroying property.

and endangering lives.

And in recent years, record -breaking
blazes have grown to magnitudes that

firefighters on the ground can't contain
on their own.

A flame length of about five feet is all
about a firefighter can handle.

But oftentimes these fires that we see,
we have flame lines that are hundreds

and hundreds of feet in length.

Every year there's more and more fires.

Now the fire season seems to be getting
longer and more destructive.

But now a team of aviation engineers led
by former firefighter Dan Reith.

is striking back against these
overwhelming infernos.

Enter the Global Supertanker.

The largest firefighting aircraft on the
planet.

The Global Supertanker is just amazing.

It's the queen of the skies.

It absolutely is a game -changing piece
of engineering.

When people see such a big, magnificent
machine do what it does,

one just can't help but stare at it in
awe with your jaw drop going, my gosh,

how can that happen? Am I really seeing
this happen?

This unique jumbo jet is equipped to
tackle the planet's biggest blazes.

Capable of dropping the equivalent of
over 400 bathtubs of liquid in 13

It can create a barrier that stops fire
dead in its tracks.

With a wingspan wider than the width of
a soccer field.

and four turbofan engines capable of
producing 254 ,000 pounds of thrust.

The supertanker can achieve speeds of
almost 600 miles per hour,

allowing it to reach fires anywhere in
the world within 20 hours.

It's a vital tool for supporting the
heroic firefighters on the ground.

Okay, guys, function test today, primary
mission is I'm going to check all

flight controls are normal, and the drop
system is normal.

At a high -tech facility in the Pacific
Northwest, the supertanker's chief

pilot, Cliff Hale, and his crew are
preparing the aircraft for a test

Pre -flight checks are all good here.

Weight and balance, how's the weight and
balance look?

Half load on the left side, 80 ,000
pounds of water.

Yep, everything looks good.

As the largest aerial firefighter on the
planet, it's essential the supertanker

is always ready for action.

This is the only aircraft of this size
and magnitude.

And if we don't have it right, we don't
have the systems installed and tuned,

the aircraft is unusable. So this is
something that we have to get right.

We'll treat it just as the real thing.

Keep a sharp eye out.

Okay, you ready to go do this? Ready to
do it.

The Supertankers team has designed an
incredible piece of engineering.

But how have they repurposed a jumbo jet
for fighting huge fires?

How do you drop liquid in an unbroken
line from hundreds of feet above the

ground?

Our goal is for the material that we
drop to rain in on the fire, you know,

impact the terrain and the fire where we
want it to impact and how we want it to

impact.

And what do you use to stop a raging
inferno dead in its tracks?

It would be mind -boggling for people to
see the rate of spread that these fires

have the potential of having.

Okay, clear for takeoff. We'll make a
left traffic, Super Tank 944.

Today, the flight team, led by Cliff
Hale, is taking the Super Tanker up to

the drop system.

Set, takeoff, thrust.

Thrust, Jeff, toga, toga.

You're up. You're coming up.

And just make a nice long left -hand
pattern. 1 ,000 feet to go.

But in order to convert this 747 from a
commercial airliner into a high -tech

firefighter, its engineers have had to
solve some significant problems.

So the challenges are infinite when it
comes to building an aircraft this size.

It takes, in the realm of years, putting
the drop system together in the

aircraft to make it work, meet the
parameters for what we need to do on the

ground for the firefighters. So how much
can we drop?

How do we choose how much we want it to
drop? How fast we want it to drop? The

challenges are many.

To overcome these obstacles.

The supertanker team can look to the
pioneers of the past for inspiration.

Engineer Dan Dickrell has traveled to
Florida's East Coast.

Look at that.

Wow.

This is awesome.

To discover an aircraft that helped
revolutionize firefighting.

This is the TBM Avenger.

It's an amazing and iconic aircraft of
World War II.

And I cannot believe that I've got the
opportunity to take this thing up for a

spin today.

It's going to be amazing.

First entering service in 1942, the
Avenger was designed as a torpedo bomber

the United States Navy.

With almost 10 ,000 Avengers built in
total, it earned a reputation as one of

the U .S. military's most effective
aerial weapons.

Shortly after the war ended in 1945,

this now iconic aircraft would be called
upon to take charge of a new mission.

The eventual solution would come from an
unexpected source.

Paul Mance was a well -known Hollywood
stunt pilot who appeared in over 250

films.

And his work to convert his privately
owned Avenger would change firefighting

history.

But how did Mance make his concept a
reality?

And it was a very, very effective and
innovative solution in an era that

really needed it.

And what can today's engineers learn
from the pioneering, firebombing Avenger

decades later?

Ready,

ready,

drop. Valves open.

When stunt pilot Paul Mance customized
his Avenger aircraft, To help combat

California's historic 1950s wildfires,
he forever changed the way catastrophic

fires are fought.

In order to battle towering infernos
rather than enemy troops, the Avenger

warplane was creatively re -engineered.

Oh, wow.

Check this out.

So being up inside the torpedo bomb bay
of the Avenger is an interesting

experience because ordinarily this would
be where the torpedo would go.

But with a fire bomber, this space is
where the tank goes.

The 500 -gallon tank was divided down
the center into two compartments,

allowing the pilot to drop a half load
by opening one door

or a full load by opening both doors.

Since the doors could be operated
independently, it allowed for a

release of the water. So if some of the
water needed to be delivered, one of the

doors would open, that tank would be
emptied, and then circle around, do it

again.

It allowed very flexible delivery of
water on a fire.

Armed with Mansa's water tank
innovation,

The Avenger played a key role in
tackling the wildfires of the 1950s,

way for the aerial firefighters of the
future.

Two right, Taker 944, thanks.

Today, the team behind the Super Tanker
has taken the technology that was

pioneered by the Avenger and scaled it
up to record -breaking proportions.

Cliff, I got throttles.

All right, thanks.

Chief Pilot Cliff and his crew are
getting ready to put the Super Tanker's

system to the test.

She's all looking good now.

Chris, where you at? System is armed,
system is hot.

Thank you. Thanks.

Almost 70 years after the Avengers'
first firefighting missions, the super

tanker can carry a staggering 19 ,000
gallons of liquid, 38 times what the

Avenger carried.

Ready,

ready,

drop. Files open.

And the payload can be dropped in just a
matter of seconds.

Top's closed. Thank you.

It's an epic feat of engineering that no
other aircraft in the skies is capable

of.

This remarkable operation is only
possible thanks to the unique technology

inside the aircraft's fuselage.

David Allen is the head of maintenance.

These five tanks here that are on the
left side, along with the five tanks on

the right side, these are what hold the
water or anything else that we're going

to drop.

Each one is independent, and the total
capacity of the system is 19 ,200

gallons.

Each of the 10 huge liquid tanks was
custom welded from aluminum alloy, the

largest of which can carry 2 ,645
gallons.

Currently there's no other aircraft that
has a system like this.

It's all internal to the aircraft.

The major benefit to the internal system
is we have no airspeed or altitude

restrictions. We can fly any fire
anywhere in the world at the same

altitude as a normal passenger aircraft.

In order to transform the supertanker
from its former passenger -carrying

configuration,

Each of its 386 seats was removed from
the lower deck.

And an inventive engineering solution
was used for installing the giant tank.

Well, in order to install these tanks
because they're so large and they won't

fit through a normal door, this entire
section of the aircraft fuselage is cut

out and this cargo door section is put
in.

With the liquid tank system weighing in
at an excess of 16 ,000 pounds, The task

of fixing them to the aircraft was
difficult and delicate work.

But accommodating the additional weight
once the tanks were installed was

another challenge.

Because the tanks are so large, the main
deck cargo floor had to be reinforced.

They take out the original floor
assemblies and they install the beefed

floor structure that can handle the
additional weight.

With the enormous tank successfully
loaded up in their reinforced aircraft,

team behind the Global Supertanker has
created a firebomber of epic

Operated by a crew of 15, the
Supertanker can dump in excess of 3 ,800

buckets of liquid in 13 seconds.

It is capable of executing drops as low
as 200 feet above the ground, meaning at

its lowest functional altitude, it would
almost scrape the top of the leaning

tower of Pisa.

On board the supertanker. Okay, speeds
are in.

Cliff Hale and his team are putting the
plane through its paces.

But these displays of daredevil flying
aren't just for show.

They are critical to ensuring that the
liquid the crew dumps lands exactly

they want it to.

It's an incredible challenge to drop the
product and be accurate with it. You

drop heights at 250 feet, but you might
be crossing over ridgelines at 150 feet.

Now crossing a ridgeline at 150 feet
with a 747 is pretty amazing.

Not only do the pilots need to fly
perilously low, they also need to fly at

slow speed.

How to check.

But with the fully loaded aircraft
weighing over 850 ,000 pounds, that's

said than done.

If you're pointing downhill on a
downhill drop, now you've got the weight

the airspeed.

That's pushing you, literally pushing
you downhill.

It's all very challenging.

In order to achieve this seemingly
impossible feat of low and slow flying,

supertanker is equipped with an
ingenious engineering solution.

So what we're looking at here is the
power flaps on the aircraft. They

lift and they increase drag.

So it helps the aircraft slow down for
the drop.

In typical cruise flight, These flaps
retract up into the wing cavity, and as

they come in for the drop and they need
to start slowing down to reduce airspeed

for the drop, that's when they'll extend
the flaps down.

When the flaps are all the way down,
this will help the aircraft slow down to

around 130 knots or 149 miles per hour.

Fowler flaps expand to enlarge the wing
surface area, increasing lift.

As they extend down, they increase drag,
allowing the aircraft to stay airborne

at slower speed.

In order to take an aircraft this large
and this heavy and to make it slow down

to 149 miles per hour, you have to have
a flap system like this.

If for any reason we had a failure that
the flaps were completely inoperative,

it would be impossible for us to make a
successful drop.

But skillful flying and specially
designed wing flaps aren't enough to

supertankers slow the spread of the
worst wildfires.

To combat the most volatile blazes, the
team must engineer another solution.

You can have up to 90 mile an hour winds
pushing a fire burning several thousand

acres a minute.

For inspiration.

The Global Supertanker team will turn to
the pioneers of the past.

Now this is pretty intense, even under
these very controlled conditions.

I can only imagine what this would be
like if it was a real fire.

Wildfires are one of the most
destructive natural forces on the

We rely on firebombers like the Global
Supertanker to help fight these

devastating disasters.

But in the most extreme cases, even
these technologically advanced aircraft

can't completely smother the flames from
above.

It's a challenge the supertanker's chief
of operations, John Winder, understands

from firsthand experience.

I've personally seen some pretty extreme
fire behavior.

You can have up to 90 -mile -an -hour
winds pushing a fire burning several

thousand acres a minute.

They can be very, very dangerous for the
public and for the firefighters.

Extinguishing such large and fast
-moving fires from the air is almost

impossible.

So the supertanker team needs to take a
different approach.

We actually don't try to put the fire
out. What we're trying to do is build

containment lines, you know, to give the
firefighters a chance to get there.

By dropping lines of liquid ahead of the
fire, the supertanker can create a

barrier that slows or stops its spread.

But in order for this containment tactic
to be successful, the crew needs an

alternative to water.

Water has to be applied directly on the
fire.

Otherwise, it'll just evaporate before
the fire gets there.

To find a solution, Engineers must look
to the innovators of the past.

At a state -of -the -art fire training
facility in northwest England.

Okay, water on!

Water on!

Fire safety engineer Luke Bisbee is
about to do a hands -on demonstration of

challenges involved in firefighting.

Okay,

that's it. Keep it low. There you go.
Cone down now.

Now this is pretty intense, even under
these very controlled conditions.

I can only imagine what this would be
like if it was a real fire.

Take another step forward.

There, there you go. Okay.

When it comes to fighting fire, water
has long been one of our most effective

weapons.

What you can see what's happening here
is that the spray from the hose is

pushing the fire away from me, but also
all this water spray is turning to

steam. And in doing so, it's consuming
energy, so it's taking heat away from

fire. And eventually, if enough energy
gets taken away, the fire will go out.

Let's cut it down.

But while water is a tried and tested
means of tackling fire, There are some

situations in which water is simply not
enough.

That was intense.

Now sometimes if a fire is too hot or
too big, we just can't supply enough

to put it out.

And if a fire has an abundant supply of
fuel, sometimes just as we extinguish

one area, it's moving so fast that
another area will ignite and the fire

spread before we can do anything about
it.

It's a problem that has been plaguing
firefighters for thousands of years.

In the 19th century, French chemist
Joseph -Louis Gay -Lussac proposed an

answer.

So what Gay -Lussac did was he
formulated a mix of different chemicals

could significantly slow the rate at
which a fire can burn. And the key

ingredient in that mix was this stuff,
ammonium phosphate.

It's essentially a form of salt.

When combined with ammonium chloride and
borax, the ammonium phosphate -based

formula became known as fire retardant.

Now, our fire retardant is a more modern
mixture, but the key ingredient remains

the same.

And I'm going to demonstrate how it
works.

Created to help solve the problem of
stage curtains catching fire in crowded

theaters, Gay Lusak found that when
material was coated in his newly

liquid, it stopped the spread of flames.

So what we've got here is fuel. It's dry
straw, so it's really flammable.

And when I introduce this fire, you can
probably guess what's going to happen.

Now this is quite a small demonstration,
but you can imagine at the scale of a

forest that a fire spreading rapidly
through the forest, the firefighters

have no chance to put that out with the
water alone. And so they'd need another

tool in their arsenal.

Just like on the supertanker, retardant
can offer fire crews an ideal

alternative to water.

Now let's see what happens if we repeat
this exercise, but in this case I've

treated a line of fuel with our fire
retardant.

We can see the fire now is really taking
off and it's spreading across the fuel.

And you can see the flames licking at
the patch that we've got treated with

fire retardant.

This is really amazing. You can see that
the fire has just stopped at the line

of treated straw. The fire has been
stopped dead in its tracks.

It's an incredible result.

That's all thanks to the chemical
properties of the retardant key

So what's happened here is that the fire
has burned along the tray until it

meets the fuel that has the ammonium
phosphate.

When ammonium phosphate is heated, the
molecules break down and consume the

energy. And so that energy is no longer
available to burn the fuel, and

eventually the fire just goes out.

The fire retardant doesn't actually
extinguish the fire. It prevents the

from burning.

Long after Gay Lucek's discovery,
retardant is still an essential part of

firefighter's arsenal.

This is really incredible stuff.

A brilliant invention that gives fire
crews another vital tool in their never

-ending battle against fire.

Today, the supertanker depends on this
innovative liquid to help battle the

biggest blazes.

Galusak's fire retardant is a powerful
tool, but it still needs to be

meticulously deployed to be effective.

Because of the large capacity of
chemical that needs to be delivered, it

a challenge.

To give the Global Supertanker aircraft
its best chance to fight the worst

fires, engineers will need to utilize
another pioneering innovation of the

When chemist Gay Lussac invented
retardant, it became crucial in the

fight against fire.

And it's a tool that the Global
Supertanker team relies on.

Retardant can be very effective.

It's the ultimate tool, certainly on
large, rapidly expanding fires.

We're not dropping right on the fire,
we're dropping ahead of the fire.

The hope is that you have enough
retardant down, that you can slow the

enough that the ground resources can get
in and actually put the fire out.

And it's not just its firefighting
properties that make retardant such a

substance.

The red color gives us the ability to
see it from the air.

You can start to build a retardant line.

Firefighters know when they come upon
it, they can smell it, see it, and feel

it. If you're on a ridge looking across,
you can start seeing they've got

retardant in place, and that may play
into your decision process of what

going to do as a ground firefighter.

Fire retardants might help stop the
spread of fire, but to use it

The supertanker must drop thousands of
gallons in an unbroken line.

Any gaps in a return line is an
opportunity for the fire to burn

I'm just going to go down a little bit.

All right.

You guys ready?

Ready.

As chief of operations for the
supertanker, John Winder understands the

challenges of achieving the seemingly
impossible feat better than most.

So when you're laying a retardant line,
the rule of thumb is that you always

overlap each drop by 20 % in order to
ensure that you don't have any gaps in

line.

Any uneven coverage of retardant on the
ground will allow the fire to keep

spreading.

But accurately dropping thousands of
gallons of liquid from hundreds of feet

above ground is not a simple task.

You've got to control the retardant at a
precise amount and timing to get the

coverage level.

Because of the large capacity of
chemical that needs to be delivered, it

a challenge.

To find a solution, the supertanker's
engineers must look to the pioneers of

path.

At a remote airstrip in the Midwest,
pilot Michael Rutledge is preparing to

to the skies in an iconic aircraft.

So we have to pull it through.

The Stearman Model 75 was built in the
1930s as a training plane for the U .S.

military.

Between 1934 and 1945, around 8 ,500
stearmen were built,

and more American pilots were trained on
them than on any other plane.

But once the war was over, this formerly
essential aircraft was in danger of

becoming peacetime surplus.

But while the fight against the Axis was
over, a different fight was brewing at

home. A 100 -acre field could be sprayed
and treated in a matter of minutes

rather than a matter of days by ground
crews.

One that would change agriculture
forever and inspire the team behind the

supertanker to engineer the impossible.

Pilot Michael Rutledge is in Iowa to see
how a former military training plane

became crucial in the fight against crop
-ravaging pests.

And this agricultural innovation may
hold the key to making the global

supertanker the most effective
firefighting air tanker ever.

But an industry in crisis would offer
the Stearman a new lease on life.

In the late 1940s, the Cotton Belt was
ravaged by a plague of vermin,

with crops covering an area equivalent
to three

times the size of Belgium.

Applying pesticides by hand was too slow
to stop the outbreak, leaving farmers

facing ruin.

Conrad Barlow, a farmer and engineer
from California, proposed a solution to

protect the cotton.

So Conrad's system enabled aircraft to
distribute all the product and

insecticides and pesticides at a much
more efficient rate.

A hundred acre field could be sprayed
and treated in a matter of minutes

than a matter of days by ground crews.

Barlow's innovative design transforms
the Stearman from training plane to crop

duster.

So this is a hopper, 200 gallons of
fiberglass.

They did remove the front cockpit to put
this in, and they just dropped the

hopper in and then bolted it in place.

This is where the liquid is loaded into.

It's a steel hatch, and they just put
the hose in, and they just loaded

everything into the hopper from a top
fill.

That 200 -gallon hopper then gravity
feeds liquid into this centrifugal pump,

which is driven by this propeller. This
is a very, very simple system. That

propeller drives the centrifugal pump.
That pump pushes the liquid through the

tubing, and then that pressurizes it out
to the booms.

So when the product gets pressurized by
the pump, and it's still pressurized at

approximately 40 psi.

It comes into these nozzles, and each
one of these nozzles is evenly spaced to

provide an even spread of the product.

It just comes out of these nozzles in
about a 400 micron spread onto the

Almost 80 years after Barlow's liquid
spraying innovation, the aerial

application of pesticides is as
important to agriculture as ever.

with many modern aircraft still relying
on pressurized spraying technology.

But in order to make the most of this
airborne innovation... All right, here

go. Coming in for a run.

It takes a pilot of great ability.

Thanks to the pilots that flew them and
Barlow's air pressure technology, the

Stearman helped prove the power of
liquid spraying.

In the skies above the Pacific
Northwest,

Cliff

and his crew are bringing the
supertanker

safely back to Earth after a successful
test flight.

Their mind -blowing drop operation was
only possible.

thanks to engineering inspired by Conrad
Barlow's pressurized air technology.

But Barlow unveiled his innovation
decades ago, and the global supertanker

21st century marvel.

The air tanks, they were hand -formed,
hand -welded, and specially built for

this aircraft.

You can't buy these off the shelf.

To create the most effective aerial
firefighting tool ever.

the team will need to take Barlow's
invention and supersize it.

Absolutely the most amazing aircraft
that's flying in this current day and

It's just an amazing machine.

In order to tackle the biggest wildfires
on the planet, engineers have designed

a firefighting aircraft on an epic
scale.

This is the Global Supertanker.

This 747 jumbo jet has been custom
designed to help firefighters on the

line tackle the world's worst blazes.

Inspired by Conrad Barlow's 1940s
pressurized crop dusting innovation,

aerial firefighter can carry a whopping
19 ,200 gallons of liquid and drop an

unbroken line of retardant that's over
half as long as Mount Everest is high.

Right now we're in the aft section of
the aircraft, and this is where the

retardant system stops, and this is
where the air system begins. The air

is what pressurizes and moves the
retardant out of the aircraft.

These are the eight air tanks that
pressurize the aircraft system up to

185 PSI.

The air tanks, they were hand -formed,
hand -welded, and specially built for

this aircraft.

You can't buy these off the shelf.

When these tanks are fully serviced,
they'll hold 1 ,634 pounds of air alone.

In order to push retardant out of the
supertanker, pressurized air is first

released into the Ullage tanks and No. 1
retardant tanks, compacting the liquid

inside the system.

When a valve is opened, the air begins
to move through the tanks, forcing the

fluid out.

As the retardant flows out, the valve
opens wider to maintain constant

and ensure consistent ground coverage.

But unlike the Stearman with its wing
-mounted spray boom, the final component

of the supertanker's drop system is
embedded in the aircraft's underbelly.

So what we have here is our four 16
-inch drop tubes.

So depending on the coverage level that
we need, the drop system operator will

select one to four valves.

If you have all four valves selected,
you can actually dump the entire 19 ,200

gallons in about 13 seconds.

To really put that in perspective, If
you had an average -sized swimming pool

your home, we could fill that swimming
pool in 13 seconds.

It's something to really be proud of.

The engineering behind this incredible
aircraft has allowed it to achieve the

seemingly impossible and change the game
in the fight against wildfires.

I would say the Supertanker is
absolutely the most amazing aircraft

flying. in this current day and age.

It's just an amazing machine.

By looking to pioneers of the past for
inspiration,

adapting their ideas,

modernizing their designs, and
conquering enormous challenges.

There's a lot of parts that took a lot
of engineering to make it all work, and

it's... Pretty amazing to watch it all
come together.

The Supertankers team has created a one
-of -a -kind piece of aviation

engineering.

And succeeded in making the impossible
possible.

Being a part of this team makes my heart
swell.

It just boggles my mind that we can even
get in this airplane and fly it and do

what we do.

It's really special.

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