Fire Engines Photos

The Canon 300D is a digital SLR. So no film is needed. This picture is made with 100 ISO. I've made some photo enlargements (30cmx45cm) and they are looking very nice on the wall :-)

Added by Marcel Sloover on 16 August 2005.

Very interesting. What speed film did you use?

Added by George A. Fen on 16 August 2005.

The USAF air base at Mildenhall, UK owns this type of crash tender.100% same except for the colour scheme which is military green.

Added by Bomba Boy on 13 November 2006.

Boy, does that bring back some memories !! I had the opportunity to be 1 of 3 to be trained on the A/S32P-15. Awesome machine!! It came out in 1978 and the Detroit 8V92(TA) was brand new to the world. My favourite feature was the headsets between crewmen. And 5, 000/water..200/AFFF put alot of fire out. Hard to believe it is just a "back-up piece now.......BUMMER!!

Added by Dougie on 13 June 2007.

This ARFF vehicle was developed by the USAF in preparation for providing fire cover to their C-5 cargo transport aircraft. It carried various amounts of water & AFFF according to the specific model produced. We had one each of the largest model stationed at Washington Dulles & Washington Nation Airports. Both were built and delivered to the (then) Metropolitan Washington Airports in 1980 under a GSA contract for about $260, 000 each. They carried 6000 gals of water and 515 gals of 6% AFFF and would produce 20, 000 gals of finished firefighting agent through the twin turrets, single handline and twin undertruck nozzles in 72 seconds. They were powered by twin 525 hp 8V92(TA) Detroit diesels for traction. Through power take-offs each engine powered a 1250 gpm Hale fire pump with a total pumping capacity of 2500 gpm. The vehicle weighed 130, 000+ lbs and would accelerate from 0-50 mph in about 60 seconds. Each tire contained enough rubber to make 32 automobile tires. The last complete tire change I witnessed cost $25, 000 for the 8 tires and $5, 000 labor. The vehicles were approximately 10 ft wide, 45 ft long and 13 ft high. Fuel mileage was only about 1 mile per gallon, per engine. The 3 man crew communicated through a headset intercom system and the fire pumps were controlled by the turret operators from their turret panel controls. The entire firefighting system was designed for a drive-around tactic with pump & roll capability, meaning it could drive and pump at the same time. Thus it was a 4 wheel drive under normal conditions but would convert to all wheel drive with a transaxle lockup capability and would traverse rough terrain with the wheels buried to the axles as demonstrated in testing. Turret discharge range was about 150 ft. This was an awesome truck to drive and operate. It had immense fire quenching abilities, carrying enough foam to discharge approximately 2 1/2 tanks of water before needing to be reserviced with foam. Ultimately, it was too many eggs in one basket and required lots of specialised maintenance, putting itself out of business in under 20 years. I suspect that the P-15 we had at Dulles Int'l had probably the highest mileage found of any built simply because of the distances traveled. Just one certification run to mid point of the fartherest runway was a 10 mile round trip and it was driven every day on daily checkouts. Both vehicles were sold at auction in around 1995, one having just 6000 miles and the other just about twice that amount. I have no idea where they eventually wound up but someone got a very good price on 4 very valuable low mileage drivelines and fire pumps.

Added by Bob See, Capt. MWAA FD retired on 08 May 2008.

To George A. Fen

Mildenhall is actually RAF Mildenhall... It is not called USAF Mildenhalll due to the fact that it is crown property, the RAF own it but lease it to the USAF

Added by Joel Whitaker on 16 June 2009.

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