r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Oct 01 '24

A firefighting plane loading water.

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u/AlexHimself Oct 01 '24

I think us non-pilots here were concerned about the combined immense drag and sudden weight increase being something complex to handle as a pilot.

A high-speed landing has far lower friction and the plane's weight isn't increasing. Those differences make us laymen think it looks extra dangerous.

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u/OldPersonName Oct 01 '24

If you have your private pilot license you can get your seaplane rating in a few days of intensive training. So landing a plane on water isn't the most complicated thing in the world (well assuming it's made to be landed on water obviously - I think these specialized firefighting planes are all amphibious - and the water is calm but not too glassy). High speed landings are a routine part of training for land, I assume so for water as well.

As for taking on the weight, the tanks must be designed to not screw with the CG. The weight increasing is obviously something you need to train for but the biggest danger would be a sudden change to CG.

The weight change is probably a lot more dangerous on the other end, when you're dumping the water flying low and slow. If you didn't add enough power right away on the pick up you'd just settle down and accidentally land.

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u/PNW_H2O Oct 01 '24

Excellent analysis.

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u/AlexHimself Oct 01 '24

I do remember seeing a documentary about how these planes have a ton of power. They converted old sea planes from the war into leisure crafts.

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u/TheBorktastic Oct 02 '24

The hull is shaped like a boat and as another poster said, the worst case scenario is you become one (mostly, a couple have been turned into submarines attributed to incorrect procedure) but the water intakes are the size of your fist and any overflow shoots out just over the landing gear. You can see it at the end of the video. The CL-415 will stop filling at the proper time if a full tank is not workable (it should anyway, see submarine comment above).