In an earlier life I was an airport fireman. It was in the late 80's so I'm pretty sure things have changed, but physics stays the same. Firstly the engines on

In an earlier life I was an airport fireman. It was in the late 80's so I'm pretty sure things have changed, but physics stays the same. Firstly the engines on these beasts are massive. My truck had 4500 gallons of water and 500 gallons of foam. It could go 60mph in a (very) straight line (that's what taxi ways are for) but acceleration and breaking were ponderous. We had another vehicle carrying 500 gallons, with a huge twin-turbo motor, which had insane acceleration and could do 100mph. It's job was to get there first, dump suppressant quickly and get out the way in the 20 seconds before I got there. Couple things I remember- these things go fast, but corner badly, so one slows down a lot before turning. Water is really dangerous to transport because it sloshes around moving the center of gravity. Best to drive with water tanks full or empty. If they're only partially full you drive really slowly around corners. Like walking speed. Not surprisingly they were almost always 100% full. Mine had pretty much 0% suspension. I took a shortcut once and hit a dirt ripple made by a recent grader. Maybe 8 inches high. The jolt was so bad the plastic light covers popped off the flashing lights. The guy in the roof well almost got thrown overboard. Honestly, I was 18 years old and it was tremendously good fun. But I will say that the car accidents we attended turned me into a cautious driver. And I font need to "go fast" in a car - thats pretty tame compared to going fast in a 36 ton truck.