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  #21  
Old 07-06-2015, 08:16 AM
Paul Tuttle's Avatar
Paul Tuttle Paul Tuttle is offline
 
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Location: Lantz,Nova Scotia ,Canada
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Low Pass View Post
Hardly. You like flying? I assume your answer would be yes. Firefighters like "rolling." Especially airport firefighters. They get to go so infrequently, I guarantee everyone of them - consciously or subconsciously - appreciated your issue. Anything less, and they need to get out of the firefighting business.
We run usually between 5 and 7 hundred calls a year. That's everything from smouldering cigarette butts to a 747 crash. And we're not a huge airport.

I'm at the end of my career and had reached the point a long time ago where the adrenaline doesn't do much for me anymore. If we get a quiet spell, it means no one is getting hurt or losing property and that's fine with me. When we do go on a call similar to the OPs, we are always happy to see everyone is safe and the airplane can be used again. We usually go up and say, 'we're glad you made it in safely.'

We also do most anything the structural depts do, as airports are a lot like cities with buildings, vehicles and lots of people. We have two structural pumpers to accommodate that need.

And, every now and then someone will drop something off to the fire house just to say thanks and it's always appreciated. Stuff with lots of sugar and calories is best.
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Last edited by Paul Tuttle : 07-06-2015 at 01:47 PM.
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  #22  
Old 07-07-2015, 04:19 PM
rattler rattler is offline
 
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Houston, Texas
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Just some food for thought from a fire service perspective, when in doubt ask for the equipment and ask as early as possible.

Failing to call for the equipment as soon as possible could have very negative effects on the outcome of an inflight emergency.

I live in the north Houston area and not making the early call for equipment at most of our fields may mean they are not even on the field when you arrive. Let’s take a look at a few north Houston area airports and the time it takes to get equipment to the runway.

KIAH: Houston Intercontinental is an ARFF index E airfield with 3 full staffed stations on field, but it still takes time to get the apparatus responding. Based on the time of the OP flight it would be coming up on shift change time for those stations so some of the crews that are coming to the end of their shift would be awake already and the new crews would be starting to filter in. As soon as the pilot of the emergency aircraft request the equipment or the controller decides the equipment should roll one of the tower controllers presses the alert button in the tower and picks up the crash phone, crews start moving toward the apparatus, depending on how close they are to the apparatus bay this can be from 0 seconds to 40 seconds. Those firefighters get to the apparatus and start putting on their turnout gear. A good experience firefighter can have all of his or her turnout gear on in about 60 seconds then climb on the truck. While most of the crews are getting their gear on the engineers are starting the apparatus and finding out what runway the need to respond to. Depending on what runway the aircraft is landing on the truck still have between 1/3 of a mile and almost 2 miles to go to get to the standby locations in a pre-alert, or between 2/10 of a mile and 2 miles depending on where the aircraft is when responding to a crash that has already happened. The primary response units weigh between 55,000 and 125,000 pounds and while quick for a truck; they are no sports car 0 to 50mph in ~35 seconds, top speed of ~70mph. Picking a middle distance of say 3/4 of a mile the apparatus will take just over 1 minute to drive to the location of a downed aircraft in the case of being alerted after the crash.

If you can get the equipment out before they will be waiting near the runway and if something happens they can get to the aircraft in seconds. If nothing happens a unit will follow you in to parking check on you and they go back to whatever they were doing before the alarm went off just like in the OP’s case.
On the other hand if they are not waiting and you do crash it would probably be about 2 to 2.5 minutes before the ARFF units arrive on scene.


KCXO: Lone Star Executive Airport in Conroe has no ARFF station at this time, in the event of an alert or crash the Conroe Fire Department is dispatched to the airport. Assuming that closest engine is not already running another call (fire, car wreck, medical call) they are almost 2 miles driving distance from the airport perimeter. If the closest engine is busy the next closest units are about 5 miles away. Additionally as these are structural firefighting engines and not ARFF crash units they need time to get into pump gear and pull a hose line once they reach the scene. Another thing to consider is that dispatch is not as fast, the tower has a direct phone number for the fire dispatch center and would call them, after they answer the phone the dispatch center must get the computer dispatch system to generate the alert tones for the appropriate fire station and read a dispatch message over the radio.

From tower making the phone call to apparatus on scene could be as short as 3 minutes up to as long as 8 minutes and it will take them another 30 to 45 seconds to start applying foam if needed.



KDWH: David Wayne Hooks Airport in the Spring / Tomball area has no ARFF station, in the event of an alert or crash the Klein Volunteer Fire Department is dispatched to the airport. KVFD has 7 stations, 4 of those stations have paid firefighters in them from 0600 to 1800 Monday through Friday. All 7 stations at night and on the weekends and 3 stations 24/7 have volunteer firefighter that respond from home or work to the station to get the apparatus before they can respond to the scene. As with Lone Star the Hooks tower has a direct dial to the fire dispatch center.

During the work week daytime hours there are 2 stations with paid staff, one is 1 mile away and the second is 2 miles away and 1 station that relies on volunteers 1.5 miles from the airport so response time from the station with paid staff should be in the 3 to 5 minute range. At night and anytime on the weekend that will go up by 1 to 2 minutes as the firefighters have to get to the station from their home or work and the apparatus will not respond until at least 3 firefighters arrive at the station.

When I got promoted to being an officer in the fire service many years ago the fire chief I worked for at the time told me “When in doubt bang ’em out”. What he was telling me was if I even though I might need more resource call for them as you can always send them home if you don’t need them. If you don’t call for them and do need them it is impossible to make them get to the scene faster.

The bottom line is call for the equipment and call for it as soon as possible. We would much rather come out and watch the plane land safely then get the other call.


Last edited by rattler : 07-07-2015 at 04:22 PM.
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  #23  
Old 07-07-2015, 04:55 PM
Icarus Icarus is offline
 
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The bottom line is call for the equipment and call for it as soon as possible. We would much rather come out and watch the plane land safely then get the other call.

[/quote]

Great advice. Thanks for taking the time to write it up.

Out of curiosity; do you know of any airport fire/rescue or municipalities that bill for an emergency call-out? This would never have any bearing on my decision to avoid burning to death, but having worked for a private EMS contractor for a city?we cost money to roll?a lot (and someone has to pay).

Thanks again.
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  #24  
Old 07-07-2015, 05:38 PM
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Paul Tuttle Paul Tuttle is offline
 
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Where I am. As soon as the tower is notified that an aircraft has a problem of any kind, be it a mechanical or medical issue on board, we are notified immediately. We have predetermined standby positions and the ARFF vehicles respond to those positions and wait for the aircraft to land. At times we've known up to an hour in advance for incoming emergencies.

In the event of a crash, the tower sounds the crash alarm and the response is immediate. We are mandated to initiate intervention within three minutes anywhere on the airport from the time of the alarm. A lot happens very fast when this occurs. The airport emergency response plan is also activated at that time, which puts the mutual aid protocol into effect, the emergency operation centre is also activated.

We are regulated to make sure the system works as advertised. We exercise the emergency plan on a regular basis and there is a training syllabus we follow. Adhearance to the regulations is monitored by the appropriate federal agency.

This whole system is dependant on getting a call in the first place. The sooner you let us know you have a problem the better it is. And as has been said, that's what we're there for and we've never said no to any of our customers.
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  #25  
Old 07-10-2015, 12:52 PM
rattler rattler is offline
 
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Location: Houston, Texas
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Icarus View Post
Out of curiosity; do you know of any airport fire/rescue or municipalities that bill for an emergency call-out? This would never have any bearing on my decision to avoid burning to death, but having worked for a private EMS contractor for a city?we cost money to roll?a lot (and someone has to pay).

Thanks again.
I am not aware of any department that is responsible for airport response that ever bills for a callout to standby, for other types of calls the answer varies based on the type of call we are responding to.

The first thing for most departments in this area is someone is getting a bill if any of our equipment is broken or damaged as a result of the call and they will pursue collection in those cases.

Fire departments in this area are all over the map when it comes to charging for fire calls, they fall into 3 broad groups:
  • Departments that do not bill for fire calls
  • Departments that do not bill for residential fire calls, but do bill for commercial fire calls.
  • Departments that bill the insurance company for all fire calls
All the departments I work and interface with will not really pursue collecting the bill against the property owner if the insurance company will not pay (most insurance companies around here will pay a nominal service fee).

On vehicle extrication (Jaws of Life) calls the departments mostly bill the insurance of those at fault and will not pursue collections against the individuals.

On rescue calls (rescue from water, high areas, collapse spaces) we only typically bill the responsible party for items that are single use items. For example in a rescue of a person from a collapsed trench we would bill whoever dug the trench for the wood cut and used to stabilize the trench so we could rescue the person.

On medical calls we work closely with the ambulance companies and get replacement supplies from the ambulance for anything we used on that call so they end up billing the patient for those supplies.

The one call type that every department in this area will bill for is HazMat (Hazardous Materials) calls. The bills for those calls can get real big in a hurry. We bill those by the hour for the apparatus and the firefighters plus our specialized equipment. We also bill for any of our equipment that was used in the contaminated area that could possible absorb the chemicals that would include and fire hose, tarps and our structural turnout gear if it was exposed to the contaminated area.

On an aircraft incident that is anything more than a standby, the call would be handled as a fire and extrication call so, again depending on the department, if anything was billed it would be billed to the insurance.
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  #26  
Old 07-31-2015, 01:05 PM
VCMaine VCMaine is offline
 
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Rindge NH
Posts: 52
Default wing root seal flapping

Same thing happened to me in a PA-28-140 years ago. It was all the more dramatic sounding because I had removed the original fiberboard back wall of the cabin anticitipating receipt of the new molded back wall with integral hat shelf. So the long open cone of the fuselage behind me acted like a big, empty tin can. I was flying solo over New Jersey somewhere. The flapping started faintly and then grew into a very loud drumming within a very few minutes. VERY SCARY, THOUGHT THE BIRD WAS COMING APART UNDERNEATH ME. By coincidence there was a small rural air strip below me. I dropped out of the sky like a rock, greased the landing and rolled to a stop. Not a soul around anywhere. I climbed out, looked over the bird but could not find anything amiss. Then I walked about 50 feet away (to relieve myself!) and then squatted down to eyeball the airplane from there, and then I saw it. About half the underside length of the seal was hanging down. Instant relief, knowing what it was. Spent three minutes pushing it back into place, and took off - no further problems.
Flying has been described by some as hours of boredom punctuated very occassionally by a moment of stark terror.....&=) I would dispute the boredom, but I can concur with the occasional feeling of terror.
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