One of the great advantages of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles is that they can safely fly in conditions that can be dangerous for aircraft with the crew. This certainly applies to forest fire extinguishing that has become a world problem.
Aiming at this problem, a Chinese company QilingUAV announced the development of an unmanned aerial vehicle, called JC260, for such operations. According to the company, the device can carry two forest fire extinguishing bombs filled with fire retardant and can be used to extinguish forest fires.
The forest fire extinguishing drone has a length of 2.8 meters, a height of 1.6 meters, and is equipped with two coaxial rotary rotors with a diameter of 3.6 meters. The device weighing 160 kg (empty) is equipped with two 34-horsepower water-cooled gasoline engines and is able to stay in the air for up to 4 hours. The take-off weight goes up to 260 kg, including bombs.
The drone should fly horizontally at speeds of up to 100 km/h (62 mph) and can carry a payload weighing up to 100 kg. It has two suspension points for fire extinguishing bombs. Capacities can be reset one at a time or simultaneously.
When the JC260 drops both fires extinguishing bombs at once, it can extinguish up to 50 cubic meters of space in a burning forest. “In the event of a fire in a forest or a dangerous chemical, we can use several drones to saturate fire extinguishing bombs at the same time,” the company explains. Other details about the JC260 are not specified.
It is a new approach to fire fighting with the help of drones. It can actually make the complex and dangerous forest fires extinguishing safer.
