maybe it would be better to add a few.
maybe it would be better to add a few.
I wonder if balsa plane covered with spackle and fiberglass would be best, with a wooden or carbon fiber prop.
Don't steal, the government hates competition.
Careful if anyone does go out there, I saw a tanker fly over several times to drop water, don't want to run into it!
Was way too windy yesterday to fly much of anything. Better today but I don't have the range capability yet.
Too bad, its only 4 miles west of where I live and work.
Last edited by SecretSpy711; 27th March 2012 at 09:37 PM.
Yeah, literally run a temp sensor on the outside and you should be able to see real quick if it's rising. I can hold the Eagle Tree sensor and have it change with my body temp pretty quick. I'd guess you could get a feel for the general temp, although flying into the wall of heat wouldn't give you much time... especially with a foam plane.Originally Posted by Pelagic Pilot
To me there isn't much help you could provide being that close over a fire since we're not dumping retardant onto it, so really FPV would be better from range up wind from the fire to provide line of sight assistance for the ground crews and help locate paths for the crews and help the commander decide on fire line positions. The temp idea is a good one tho.
The air really shouldn't be hot enough to cause problems. You're going to be high enough that the temperatures should be nowhere close enough to do damage. Turbulence generated over the fire would be significant though.
The thing is, if you are flying in the fire plume where the rising heat causes turbulence you'll probably be seeing nothing anyway (unless using thermal imaging), my plan for this has been to keep upwind, thereby allowing good visibility.
erm really? from my experience bush fires tend to be quite hot. even when you are a few hundred meters away. the air over the top would be even hotter.
im not sure you really know the extreemness of bushfires.
My job involves putting the damn things out, so I have a fair bit of experience, yes.
They are hot, but if you're flying high enough over them to get useful imagery, you won't be in the really hot bits. As the plume rises from the ground, it rapidly entrains cooler surrounding air, cooling the plume, but also making it wider at the top.
What type of useful information would we be able to provide from far above the upwind side of a wildland fire? It would seem to me that the most useful information would be had lower to the ground on the downwind side. Stuff like escape routes, spot fires, trapped life, unprotected houses, etc... Basically, all the stuff that is about to get hit.
I think it would be very cool to have some footage from high above on the upwind side of the fire, no doubt. Just don't see how that would help the ground or air crews.
That's just my point of view and I could be totally missing something as I have zero experience other then classroom stuff. Lemme know what you think.
EDIT: I would think that if a crew had a plane flying over an area downwind far enough away from the fire that we could still get guys in there we could do a lot of good. With the gps tracking the guy flying the plane and a second camera mounted on the plane as well with a head tracking unit could be set up as the spotter. the two of them could be calling out potential threat, houses that we could foam, trapped people, water supplies, etc.. Meanwhile they could have a third and forth members of the team that are actively mapping what is seen so as to pass that onto the command. This would be some very tough flying though. Lots of very turbulent wind and a fair amount of heat (being as it's the downwind side of the fire), oh, and the blinding smoke.
Last edited by WildWill; 28th March 2012 at 11:16 AM.
KF7TRU, youtube.com/user/wildwill1970/videos, Skywalker 1680mm, RMRC 400mW 1280mhz vTx, Dragonlink V1, MFD ATT, Crosshair GSA 1280mhz
OK, from the ground, the incident commander generally sees something like this:
or
And they'll normally have a topographic map in hand looking something like this:
Getting something to link these up is the problem.
When you're trying to plan for things like exit routes, places of safety, possible defensive lines, natural fire breaks, trigger points, threatened buildings etc, etc it is very useful to be able to see where the fire is and where it appears to be heading. Aerial pics are great for this e.g.
Because they give you lots of information you don't get too easily otherwise.
I have used a helicopter for this in the past, but they aren't always there when you need them, and can be a very expensive asset. This is why I'm thinking FPV, relatively inexpensive and quick to deploy, particularly when you're aiming for a quick knockdown of a small fire before it gets out of hand.
Last edited by yellowjacket; 28th March 2012 at 12:08 PM.
Ah OK, I was thinking more of the downwind side of the fire although I can see that is is possible to be able to see a nice overview of things even if the smoke is covering the details.
What vehicle are you thinking about for fpv on this stuff? Plane, quad, other?
We have an RV for major incidents that has a large TV inside. I'm thinking I may need to talk to the chief about getting something going on with that. I know our PIO just put in for a department quadrotor...I don't think he'll be getting that.
On a side note about fpv and the fire dept, I know we are looking to use it for a few things. To start with we'd like to start filming some of our drills. Would be good to have an overview of events to study for improvement and to use as a teaching aid. Would also be useful for the same purpose on a live structure fire.
Just got a call and it looks like we'll be doing some stuff with the ladder tomorrow, I'll try to get some footage.
KF7TRU, youtube.com/user/wildwill1970/videos, Skywalker 1680mm, RMRC 400mW 1280mhz vTx, Dragonlink V1, MFD ATT, Crosshair GSA 1280mhz
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