Firefighters enter the fuselage of a Mobile Aircraft Firefighting Training Device at Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily. The training aircraft allows controllers to set all or parts of the aircraft ablaze with propane gas-fed flames and to smoke up the cockpit and cabin. (Courtesy of U.S. Navy)
Ain’t nothing like the real thing.
That’s why U.S. contract firefighters from Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and K2 Air Base in Uzbekistan will spend two days next week on an aircraft, training to extinguish fires.
In March, the Naval Air Station Sigonella, Sicily, received a Mobile Aircraft Firefighting Training Device, in which trainers can set all or parts of the aircraft ablaze with propane gas-fed flames and smoke up the cockpit and cabin.
While not a real airliner, it’s an aircraft nonetheless that “allows firefighters to see a three-dimensional fire and fight an actual fire rather than a simulated one,” said Sean Edwards, Naval Air Station Sigonella’s assistant fire chief.
“They can feel the fire, feel heat, and know what it’s like to fight a blaze in [the body] of an aircraft.”
When stored, the device folds up to look like an 18-wheeler trailer. But when unfolded, it resembles a small-framed aircraft that Edwards likened to a 737 or a C-9.
Built on a 45-foot-long trailer, the training plane is a fuselage with wings, a tail and three engines on which firefighters can ignite a variety of controlled fires, meant to engulf just the wheels, the cockpit, the engine or the galley. The trailer contains the control box that operates the fires and smoke machine via a propane hose and electrical connections.
Because the fire is controlled, it can immediately be extinguished. Cameras throughout allow controllers to keep an eye on firefighters inside battling flames in temperatures that can reach 1,400 degrees. The plane can be set afire repeatedly without damaging it.
A few months ago, NAS Sigonella began training firefighters from other overseas areas, mainly those in the Southwest Asia bases, Edwards said. On Tuesday, the 12 firefighters from bases in Afghanistan and Uzbekistan will begin the two-day course in Sigonella.
While Sigonella can accommodate up to 30 students per class, the contract firefighters train on a rotating basis so that too many aren’t away from their home base at the same time, Edwards said.
“Usually, they can’t afford to send a ton at a time because of manpower reasons,” he said.
