Full-size airport "fire trainers"

Yesterday I came back from holydays with a connection in Schipol-Amsterdam, Netherlands. We landed then I saw a very mysterious airplane, on some area between runways, like old half-finished prototype or half-hidden secret plane...
Well, it had a bump like a Boeing 747 but was much smaller and only one engine per wing, and with 1 jet in the tail like a DC-10... Alas I had no camera but I though "I will ask Google". I did this morning with words "old aircraft at Schipol airport" and got it! Firefly747!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8585732@N07/2373906143
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8585732@N07/2373906305
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8585732@N07/2374741262
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8585732@N07/2373905575
But! What is this??? Glazed-nose Russian Boeing? Why a 747 with such a tail and small size and 2 engines only??
I asked Google again and got from http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=96732 : "The firefly with 747 gear and fuselage. MD-11 wings and 767 engines"
Does anyone know the story of this interesting weird "aircraft"?

It's a fire-fighters training aid. At *many* airports there is an airplane-shaped *thing* made out of thick steel plate. The interior arrangement is simialr to that of a jetliner, the entrances are like those of an airliner. It's (sometimes) set up with seats and dummies and set on fire, and then firefighters rush in to "rescue" the passengers and/or put out the fire. Often it's just set on fire with jet fuel to give the crews something to practice on. Usually they are simply slapped together on the spot with whatever chunks of steel are on hand.

Externally it only *kinda* has to look vaguely like an airliner.

see:
http://mufrti.org/program/aircraft.shtml
http://www.pantagraph.com/news/local/article_85b63086-80c8-11e0-b69c-001cc4c002e0.html
http://fbmonitor.com/2011/01/06/fort-bliss-fire-department-training-is-too-hot-to-handle/

Thanks a lot Scott, a photo-book gathering the collection of these "looking-like" airliners would be great! Does this exist? (that would enrich the Universe of airliner shapes... for dreamers like me prefering aircraft pictures than aircraft flights)

Tophe said:

Thanks a lot Scott, a photo-book gathering the collection of these "looking-like" airliners would be great! Does this exist?

Click to expand...

Not that I'm aware of. I've seen these fire training simulators at many airports; they're often disturbingly visible to passengers on taxiing airliners, near the ends of runways. At first glance they tend to look like blackened, charred husks of former jetliners, but of course on closer examination they are just plate steel, almost childlike in design.

Here's the one at Salt Lake City International:




http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Salt+Lake+City+International+Airport,+Salt+Lake+City,+UT&hl=en&ll=40.805767,-111.988298&spn=0.000398,0.001373&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=27.366321,56.513672&t=h&z=20

Wow! Thanks to (you Scott and) Salt Lake City "Creators", I would not say Salt Lake City "Designers" as maybe this airport-team built directly without "design".

A collection of fire-trainers:
http://googlesightseeing.com/2010/08/airport-emergency-training-locations/

Others:
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/fire-training-rig-at-luton-airport/view/?service=0
http://virtualglobetrotting.com/map/fire-training-area-at-copenhagen-airport/view/?service=0
http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile21902/Fire-Training-Plane---Peterson-AFB.htm
http://wiki.worldflicks.org/l_a_x_firefighter_training_area.html
http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile29229/Fire-and-Rescue-Training-at-Auckland-International.htm
http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile26994/Fire-Training-Helicopter-and-Plane.htm

Great discoveries, thanks a lot. Like a book for me.
Most of all, the asymmetric "plane" at Glasgow airport enriches my collection of asymmetric "aircraft" in a way that was not imagined at all when I first started this topic from Schipol. Thanks! ;D

Thanks, Scott. Again you widen my world. ;D

That one at Salt Lake City is a fire/rescue training dummy? Of course it is. That is what "they" want you to think. ;D

Kim M

royabulgaf said:

That is what "they" want you to think. ;D

Click to expand...

Note that the satellite photo of Dyce Airport does, in fact, show an actual Black(ened) Helicopter.

http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile26994/Fire-Training-Helicopter-and-Plane.htm

In poking around online, it looks like some airports use actual airplanes - or at least portions of airplanes - for fire trainers. I suppose if they happen to have fuselages just lying around, that makes sense. But dedicated fire trainers are made out of solid and reasonably thick steel (looks like a lot of 'em are made from tanks, boilers, large diameter pipe, parts of oil refineries, etc.), which will stand up to a whole lot of actual fire. Thin aluminum skins won' stand up very well to actual fire *at* *all.*

They range from the small and crappy (Newcastle Int'l Airport):


To the big and expensive (Manchester):


The fun thing to do, of course, would be for the BritGuv to subtlely re-direct the rioters to the airports and let 'em try to burn down the fire simulators.

The Manchester simulator not only does external fire, but also interior.


And if you like asymmetry, you'll love the satelite photos of the thing:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/18390650

My {former} employer's 'advanced fire training' was done by the local air-port's fire crew, given they were less likely to be interrupted mid-session by RTAs, chip-pan fires, kittens up phone-poles etc etc etc...


The major difference to 'local' fire-stations' exercises was the airport fire-crews' almost pyromaniacal enthusiasm for BIG FIRES. Our on-site 'field' training was a rather tame brazier which one 'chuff' of CO2 would quench. Our off-site training was, ultimately, a tray about four metres square, brimming with waste fuel-oil etc, which they lit with a flame-thrower {!!!} and we tackled with foam...


It took a certain bloody-mindedness to efficiently lay a carpet of foam on what resembled the raw maw of a Strombolian side-vent. Oddly enough, the big, 'braw' lads who you'd expect would excel tended to wobble in the face of such volcanic energy...

"Note that the satellite photo of Dyce Airport does, in fact, show an actual Black(ened) Helicopter.

http://www.gearthhacks.com/dlfile26994/Fire-Training-Helicopter-and-Plane.htm"

Been on a fire-fighting course on that location, but never on the chopper mock-up. That's reserved for the helideck crews and fire teams. There's another chopper mock-up on a helideck at Petrofac's Montrose training site.

Contrary to Nik's experience, I had a fantastic time on a two-day fire-fighting course with the local fire brigade at Hull in the late Nineties. Full-bifta burning house, BA sets and gas/oil fires. Makes you appreciate what fire-fighters do.

Chris

That Manchester simulator looks like it was designed by Gerry Anderson. They should paint a big "2" on the tail.

As a mere 'lab rat', I did not qualify for the BA course.
;-((
I did have a reputation for being in the vicinity whenever chemicals 'cooked off', and the knack of putting them out with a well-aimed 'CO2' before the drama became a crisis...


The one event in a decade that I *missed* was when the mid-office vend machine cooked-off, and spewed smoke instead of the usual foul brew it described as gold-blend coffee. ( Think 'Fools Gold' ;- ) However, I had been there but five minutes earlier, for a cup of hot chocolate...