[科技前沿]改裝波音747對抗加州大火

Tricked-out jet combats Calif. blaze

Tanker 979" pressed into service by deadly fires in Southern California

The biggest fire-Fighting jet on the planet started duty Monday combating the deadly fires around Los Angeles. It is a converted Boeing 747, dubbed Tanker 979.

If it performs as well as expected over the next few days, it could not only mean less destruction of buildings and lives, but big business for the plane’s owner, McMinnville, Oregon-based Evergreen International Aviation.

Fighting fires from helicopters and planes is not new, but nothing comes close to the fire-snuffing capacity of this former freight jet.

After a design and conversion process that cost $50 million, according to the private company’s chairman Timothy Wahlberg, the supertanker can spray 20,000 gallons of flame retardant from four-16-inch nozzles mounted on the fuselage in a pattern that amounts to a rain shower the width of a football field and three miles long.

To put that in perspective, a converted DC-10 that was used to fight fires in California a few years back had about half the capacity, and the typical fire-fighting plane used in forest fires, the P-3 Orion (developed in the ‘60s by the U.S. Navy for ship and submarine reconnaissance), has a capacity of about 3,000 gallons.

Brawn doesn't come cheap: $1 million tab?

Unlike other fire-fighting planes in use, which use gravity to dump their liquid cargo all at once from a fairly low altitude of a few hundred feet, Tanker 979’s payload is released under pressure from onboard compressed air tanks. That means that the jet can fly at a relatively high 600 to 800 feet spraying its payload as it goes, making it safer in theory, even suitable for firefighting at night.

The fire-fighting muscle of Tanker 979 does not come cheap. One report, has it costing about $1 million each time the plane is activated for a drop from its current home at McClellan Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif. Wahlberg would not say what the State of California is paying his firm to prep, load and fly the jet, which is under contract until Friday.

“We’ve been paid for three drops so far,” Wahlberg says. “Look, we grub-staked the development of this plane on our own because we thought the firefighting business needed it. Every bit of revenue helps, and we think inside of three years we’ll recover all our research and development money and be on our way.”

Last year California alone spent almost $500 million fighting emergency fires. The global price tag to combat fire runs into the tens of billions. Wahlberg envisions a fleet of 10 supertankers operated by Evergreen in spots around the world, and even more operated by government agencies built with conversion kits sold by Evergreen. The company recently demonstrated its plane in Europe and is talking to agencies in Australia and Indonesia, Wahlberg says. After years of testing and demonstrations, this is the supertanker’s first paying gig, and Wahlberg is aware of all the eyes on his plane.

So far, it’s doing the job by all accounts, laying down fire lines to protect homes near San Bernardino. “Everybody waits to see what’s going to happen when the plane is working on a real fire,” Wahlberg says. “We’ve got one now, a huge one, and already the calls are coming in.”

全球最大的滅火噴氣式飛機週一開始執行任務，對抗洛杉磯地區肆虐的大火。該飛機是波音747的改裝機型，稱爲Tanker 979。

如果它能在未來幾天裏如大家所期望的那樣表現良好，那麼它不僅能夠大大減少大火對建築物和人員的破壞與傷害，同時也會給飛機的所有者——位於俄勒岡的美國長青國際航空公司（Evergreen International Aviation）帶來大買賣。

用直升機和飛機來滅火併不新鮮，但是還沒有任何一個在滅火能力方面能和這架曾是貨機的噴氣式飛機相媲美。

整個設計和改裝的過程耗資5千萬美元。根據這傢俬有企業的董事長蒂莫西•沃爾伯格（Timothy Wahlberg）的說法，這架巨型飛機可以從位於機身的4-16英寸的噴嘴中噴灑2萬加侖的阻燃劑，這相當於在一個有橄欖球場那麼寬，3英里長的區域下了一場陣雨。

從這方面看，幾年前在加州用於撲滅大火的改裝型DC-10 只具備它一半的能力。而另一種在森林火災中常用的滅火飛機P-3 Orion （美國海軍在60年代開發出的用於輪船和潛艇偵查的機型）只能載3，000加侖的阻燃劑。

“大個頭”花費不小：1百萬美元？

和其它正在使用的滅火飛機不同，那些飛機憑藉重力可以在很低的幾百英尺的高度將所承載的液體一次性倒出，而Tanker 979的有效荷載則是通過機上的壓縮氣罐施壓將液體噴出。也就是說，這架噴氣式飛機可以在相對較高的600至800英尺，在飛行過程中噴灑出有效荷載，從理論上講更加安全，甚至適合夜間撲火。

Tanker 979 滅火性能強大，花費可不小。有報道稱，飛機每次從位於加州薩克拉門託的麥克萊倫空軍基地啓動並噴灑一次成本爲100萬美元，但沃爾伯格不會透露加州政府要向他的公司支付多少飛機準備、裝載和飛行的費用，而這些費用在本週五前都是按照合同執行的。

沃爾伯格說：“截止目前，我們一共噴灑了3次。我們自主研製開發這款飛機是因爲我們覺得滅火行業需要它。每一筆收入都是有幫助的，我們認爲在未來3年中，我們可以收回研製和開發的成本，業務會不斷髮展。”

去年，僅加州就花費了近5億美元來撲滅突發性火災。全球滅火的價碼高達數百億。沃爾伯格預計，將由長青公司運營，在全球範圍內建立一個由10架巨型飛機組成的編隊。沃爾伯格說，公司最近在歐洲展示了這款飛機，並和澳大利亞、印度尼西亞的機構接洽。經過幾年的測試和演示，這是巨型飛機首次有償“亮相”，沃爾伯格意識到大家的目光都聚焦於此。

目前，根據各種說法，飛機正在發揮作用，噴灑出一個防火隔離帶，以保護聖貝納迪諾附近的房屋。沃爾伯格說：“大家都拭目以待，看看飛機在火災現場的表現如何。我們已經成功完成了第一個任務，而且是很龐大的任務，還有源源不斷的需求。”