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Big Wind is the meanest firefighting tank you ever saw (2021)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- bitwize 4y agoOh, man, whoever writes a simulator for this could make a mint on Steam.
- t_mann 4y agoOutside of the Hungarian oil subculture, the practice has been largely ignored I've always wondered whether some technologies have been given less attention in the west because they were considered 'Soviet'. Bacteriophages, an alternative to antibiotics less likely to induce resistances, come to mind as well. But of course, there might be perfectly valid technical reasons for why it didn't catch on.
- dvh 4y agoI remember some Soviet scientist had trouble cutting thin samples for transmissive electron microscope because the cutting itself introduced stress which then ruined the sample so he created a method of slowly cutting the sample with thread dowsed in sulfuric acid, this didn't deform the sample.
- daniel-cussen 4y agoThe problem with many of those clever things is they're too cheap. Doesn't make for a good business model.
- HeyLaughingBoy 4y agoIt's common to employ a similar technique when making cinnamon rolls. Sweet dough/cinnamon/butter/sugar mix is rolled up into a long tube, then you cut the individual rolls using dental floss wrapped around the tube. Generally, the H2SO4 is omitted. And now I know what I'm making for breakfast tomorrow!
- rob74 4y agoTBF, you (fortunately) don't have out of control burning oil wells that often, so such a specialized firefighting vehicle is needed very rarely. But in situations such as Kuwait, it sure is handy to have one...
- djmips 4y agoI saw a small documentary about an American crew in Kuwait where someone said that putting out the fire was the easy part - capping was the hard part. So maybe that's part of it. That being said, the documentary did dramatize a particularly difficult to put out well head but they did manage to put that one out as well by just putting a cap on it which allowed the fire to shoot out above at a higher level and then turning off the valve to choke out the fire. I got the impression that this was an outlier well and that most of the others were extinguished more easily.
- givemeethekeys 4y agoI think you mean this one: - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUzkF_Dp8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUzkF_Dp8M It is awesome.
- Andrew_nenakhov 4y agoPrior to reading this, I had an impression that the most used method for putting out the burning oil wells is TNT - the blast wave just blows off the burning fire, and it burns no more. However, this article suggests that just blowing off the fire is not enough, because hot sand and air might re-ignite the oil. So, probably, the explosives also damage the well, disrupting the supply of the fuel.
- gambiting 4y agoI like the one where an oil well fire was actually put out with a small nuclear explosion - that seems to have worked(multiple times in fact!) https://interestingengineering.com/soviet-engineers-detonated-a-nuke-miles-underground-to-put-out-a-gas-well-fire https://interestingengineering.com/soviet-engineers-detonate...
- teh_klev 4y ago> I had an impression that the most used method for putting out the burning oil wells is TNT You're not wrong. The technique was pioneered by Red Adair who was quite a famous firefighter with a speciality in blowout fires: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Adair It's worth doing a search on YouTube for videos of his "work": https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=red+adair https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=red+adair
- wrp 4y agoAlso inspired the movie Hellfighters. (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063060/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063060/)
- throwaway0a5e 4y agoCapping the well while burning has a huge advantage over explosives which is that it's much harder for people who don't know what they're talking about to bike-shed the process and therefore has less risk of cost ballooning over time and investing in those techniques/experience/know how often look like the more assured option even if it's the more difficult and costly technique on paper both up front and per use.
- yyyk 4y agoBacteriophages had serious problems that made them unsuitable for mass deployment. For example, you need to isolate a strain suitable against an infection, and that's a process which was difficult to scale. Another problem is that as far as the body is concerned, the phage is an infection too and it turns out the body can be effective at getting rid of phages. Lastly, resistances also occur against phages.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoBut new phage strains would evolve head to head with the resistant bacteria, right? With antibiotics you have a fixed molecule, which becomes useless if the bacteria develops resistance.
- t_mann 4y agoThat's the classical argument pro phages. It's probably not easy to pick a clearly better one, @yyyk seems to have more insight than I do, but I did read an article pointing out that research on bacteriophages in the west only really took off after the cold war.
- yyyk 4y agoYes, but you can't rely on that on a natural setting. Sometimes the body does get rid of a disease, right? Same thing with bacteria-phage relationship - and the resistant bacteria can then spread (while the better phages are difficult to harvest back from the body, and may not be as effective against the original strain). I think a more personalized medical system can do a lot of good with phages given modern tech, but most medical provision systems would have difficultly deploying it, and certainly no one was able to back when it was developed. AFAIK, the ability to easily scale, transport and deploy antibiotics was what led to antibiotics being chosen over phages just about everywhere.
- sandworm101 4y agohttps://xkcd.com/1217/ https://xkcd.com/1217/ The joke is about cancer cells but is equally applicable to bacteria. Just because something is very very good at killing bacteria doesn't mean that it can also become a practical medicine.
- raverbashing 4y agoYes, sometimes technologies are forgotten, and sometimes they didn't catch on because there were some complicated gotchas The space pen vs. pencil story comes to mind, and it seems silly they wouldn't use a pencil except that it is a dust hazard, a short-circuit hazard (especially if you're using circuits more densely packed) etc
- t_mann 4y agoThe space pen vs pencil story is a classic example of a story that catches on because it sounds great, except that it isn't really true when you look more closely. Another classic is the historic tulip bubble, which was far more contained in reality than people tend to assume (there was a price crash, but the financial fallout was largely limited to a few families who could mostly afford it).
- EdwardDiego 4y agoJet engines are used for mine rescue in our non-Hungarian neck of the woods. https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pike-river-2010/66373/pike-river-gag-unit-to-be-handed-back-to-owners https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/pike-river-2010/66373/pike-river-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorniczy_Agregat_Gasniczy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorniczy_Agregat_Gasniczy
- barrenko 4y agoThis is pretty awesome (in addition to this whole thread).
- sandworm101 4y agoFor mine rescue? These seem designed to put out fires by suppressing O2 levels. Is this helpful in rescue situations or are these more about simply putting out stubborn underground fires?
- EdwardDiego 4y agoSometimes you have to put out the fire that's trapped the miners before you can rescue them.
- bombcar 4y agoIf there are two technologies, and all else is equal, and one is slightly more efficient or slightly cheaper or slightly anything, it’ll often catch on and completely overtake the other one. Only when they’re perfectly balanced does it seem that both come into play and remain (left vs right hand drive, for example).
- greggsy 4y agoTo add to this purely economics perspective, the there’s a lot more at play when it comes to take up of new technological innovations: the preparedness the manufacturing sector to produce and deliver the goods, and customer acceptance. The first is probably an economic one, but it’s important to consider that it’s not all about the cost of production - the technique may be prohibitive, and could draw out too many strategic resources from other areas in the sector… and it might not even scale, or has a short shelf life, or, or… The second - customer acceptance - would need to be carefully considered. The doctor offers you two options to treat your babushka, the familiar and reliable antibiotic, or the new drug that sounds like a Matrix virus?
- bombcar 4y agoYeah, the first point is a good one - if you have a new process that uses parts/procedures that already exist you're going to have a much easier time than if you have a better process that requires all-new parts and procedures. For something to overtake it has to be amazingly exceptionally better; which can be hard to obtain.
- t_mann 4y agoThere are significant "snowballing" effects wrt to technology adoption, more widely adopted technologies tend to improve far more quickly. So a little bit of noise in the early days about the true potential of a technology could conceivable sway the race in one direction or another, and I was wondering whether there were instances of where the noise signal might have been that it was considered as "Soviet" and thus less likely to receive research funding/grants. A less geopolitical example that I can think of was research in the 50's about limitations of neural networks (XOR problem,...) that some people I take seriously argue has delayed the adoption of these architectures by a generation or two (the only politics here was the battle for government funding by different researchers/labs).
- nivye 4y agosemi-related: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUzkF_Dp8M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tUzkF_Dp8M
- cyxxon 4y agoMore precisely: https://youtu.be/-tUzkF_Dp8M?t=1198 https://youtu.be/-tUzkF_Dp8M?t=1198 - so, at the 20:00 mark.
- andrewstuart 4y agoReminds me of Thunderbirds. https://imodeler.com/2016/10/the-thunderbird-recovery-vehice-imai-non-scale/ https://imodeler.com/2016/10/the-thunderbird-recovery-vehice...
- techdragon 4y agoI dream of a museum full of this kind of one off machines… and I always thought the only appropriate name would have to include Thunderbirds somehow. I have largely settled on “The Thunderbird Museum of Innovative and Unique Machinery” to avoid potential trademark problems… like the Air and Space wing of the Smithsonian but full of weird and interesting machines like this firefighting tank. Such examples of “necessity is the mother of all invention” are worthy of saving to inspire others to think beyond the conventional form of the solutions they are most common with.
- bschne 4y agoTangentially reminded me of this documentary about the Soviets using a nuke to shut off a gas blowout - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KJ6p4JVN4g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KJ6p4JVN4g
- PedroBatista 4y agoCan we call it Mr Beans? Or perhaps Farty McFart Face?
- eesmith 4y agoI was missing something. The article says: > In its original form, Big Wind put out nine burning oil wells in Kuwait, more than many teams that were working with the more traditional method of blowing out well fires with the use of high explosives. while https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#Extinguishing_efforts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuwaiti_oil_fires#Extinguishin... says: > The companies responsible for extinguishing the fires initially were Bechtel, Red Adair Company (now sold to Global Industries of Louisiana), Boots and Coots, and Wild Well Control. Safety Boss was the fourth company to arrive but ended up extinguishing and capping the most wells of any other company: 180 of the 600. Other companies including Cudd Well/Pressure Control, Neal Adams Firefighters, and Kuwait Wild Well Killers were also contracted. 180 is clearly larger than 45. What I was missing was the total number of teams involved. https://rlg.fas.org/Taming%20Wild%20Wells%20of%20Kuwait%20354011a0(2).pdf https://rlg.fas.org/Taming%20Wild%20Wells%20of%20Kuwait%2035... says "Nearly 30 crew were used", and the Wikipedia page says Big Wind was used for 43 days across the 7 month period. Assuming 30 day months, that's a mean of 600 / 29 * (43 / (7*30)) = 4.2 wells per crew in a 43 day period, which is well less than Big Wind's crew.
- nickelpro 4y agoThe vast majority of Kuwaiti oil well fires were put out by flooding with sea water. A smaller number of problematic fires were put out with explosives. Big Wind is a fun story but was a drop in the bucket compared to the work of the real well services companies that operated in Kuwait.
- formerly_proven 4y agoThe Kuwaiti oil well fires are also a bit of science history because the data gathered there provided an experimental refutation of then-popular nuclear winter theories.
- Retric 4y agoIt’s not quite that simple, the dramatic reduction in nuclear stockpiles significantly reduced the threat. What the oil wells did is suggest that the threat from burning cities was also lower outside of the bombs direct fireball which is very effective at transporting material to the upper atmosphere. However, more recent models show that fires across larger areas may be more capable of sending particles to the stratosphere. Combined the overall threat still exists, but would be less severe than initial predictions.
- slac 4y agoSilly question, but I need to know. Could this help slow done rapidly advancing forest fires? Maybe if it could be used to "split" them into smaller fires?
- dredmorbius 4y agoAlmost certainly not except in very limited cases. Big Wind is designed for reasonably contained fires, often fuel-fed as with oil or gas well fires. There, if you can extinguish the immediate flame, you've got a chance at capping the well, cutting off the fuel, and preventing further combustion. Wildfires are more akin to a battle front, or in their worst cases, a literal storm of fire which behaves unpredictably and doesn't simply advance across terrain but can skip and jump, creating tremendous winds in the process. Fire tornados in recent Northern California fires picked up and tossed trucks and heavy equipment, killing several people in that process. Wildfires also tend to advance not simply as a flame front but through blown embers, which can carry the fire foreward 100s of metres, or even kilometres, from the primary flame front. Combatting is more a matter of saving people and property --- evacuations and "treatment" (clearing brush, foaming or gelling walls and roofs, possibly setting sprinklers and soaking ground and surfaces), "fuel denial" through brush-clearing, cutting fire lines, and back-burning, and laying suppressant through aerial attack. Fire lines may stretch for kilometers, with crew deployed along them. Methods used are far more strategic than tactical. Wendover Productions did a pretty good "How Fighting Wildfires Works" video four years ago: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=EodxubsO8EI https://yewtu.be/watch?v=EodxubsO8EI
- amelius 4y agoNot wireless/hose-less though. The meanest water cannons are used in riot control.
- erwincoumans 4y agoAmazing forces indeed, but I am curious: >> The crew all wear flame-resistant gear to protect themselves from the immense heat Can't we add tele-operation to modern versions of such firefighting tanks? Remote controlling the tank and water nozzles wearing VR glasses and intuitive controls, instead of exposing people to those temperatures. Modern tanks cannot drive-by-wire?
- BizarroLand 4y agoI think it's a cost thing. I bet those older tanks require a good bit of strength to operate, so to replacing an insulated human that cost a few hundred dollars a day at most with robotics that can withstand 600 degree operating temperatures and still reliably exerting the forces needed to control the tank would be a tall order and it would take a long time to earn back the equivalent expense
- erwincoumans 4y agoGood point. One could use liquid cooling from the nozzles, to protect motors and electronic from the heat, but it is a non-trivial problem indeed.
- tyho 4y agoBut not the meanest firefighting equipment. That would be a nuclear bomb: https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/02/archives/soviet-discloses-nuclear-blast-that-put-out-fire-in-gas-field.html https://www.nytimes.com/1971/12/02/archives/soviet-discloses...
- belter 4y agoAh Radiation...Good for your teeth also... https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/radioactive-quack-cures/pills-potions-and-other-miscellany/doramad-radioactive-toothpaste.html https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/radioa...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- v8xi 4y agoWould highly recommend watching Fires of Kuwait - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2deGanpWvEo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2deGanpWvEo They show this and other technologies developed by the different countries involved in the firefighting efforts. Also astounding videography
- cjrp 4y agoI'm surprised that two jet engines running at 70% throttle don't just slide the whole tank away from the fire; or is it dug-in somehow?
- wmeredith 4y agoTanks weigh a LOT. Planes have to be very light for a reason.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- Rediscover 4y agoWritten up on Bad Ass of the Week: https://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigwind https://www.badassoftheweek.com/bigwind
- swader999 4y agoThis could be used as a pretty boss snow making device in the winter time.
- traeregan 4y agoBig Wind is the only firefighting tank I've ever seen. At-first I didn't get the name, but then I read the bit about the jet engines. This thing is badass. > Water for the operation was sourced from the Arabian Gulf, with saltwater pumped in using oil pipelines running in reverse. That's almost as impressive as the tank.
- sandworm101 4y agoThis thing relies on jet engines. There are lots of odd machines around the world that use jet engines for strange high-energy tasks (ie speed record attempts). Invariably they rely on used aircraft engines that are, for whatever reasons, no longer suitable for flight and would not be financially practical if built using new engines. As they are no longer flying, these engines are likely not serviced appropriately. They are likely just using them until something pops. You wouldn't want to be around an aging jet engine when it decides to give up the ghost. Things get very energetic very quickly.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]