Posted on 04/16/2006 9:30:47 AM PDT by freepatriot32
How do you figure out whether a foam firefighting system in an air force hangar is set up correctly and works? Well you turn it on for a few seconds, to make sure it's got pressure and everything. First you set up a scaffolding so you can record the event and show the flow coming out of all nozzles.
And then you let 'er rip. After 15 seconds you can see foam is covering all areas it has to, so the test is successful. Shut 'er off.
Uh, guys? Shut 'er off?
Aw crap. Whatever was meant to shut off the system after 15 seconds, did NOT shut it off and the foam continued to flow. After a few minutes...
The foam is a story high and still flowing!
Uh, Joe? you can climb the scaffolding ladder now...
Two stories high.
This is the guy standing on top of the scaffolding.
So they just let it go.
SNAFU, ah, I mean FUBAR.
AFFF doesn't have an offensive odor. The old style foam did though, supposedly it contained animal blood byproducts, ( cow's blood is what they told us).
Air force may have a different version than the Navy, the stuff we used on ships didn't stink, heck we used it to clean bilges.
Jack
ping
You might be right.
Let me know what you find out.
Guys, you gotta see this one.
Pinging my humor ping list - freepmail me if you want on or off this list.
(This is usually a low volume ping)
thanks for the ping.
I've seen harder clean ups however. Not as much foam, but when it freezes because it was only 10°F, clean up is a lot longer task.
Well, it might just be that the stuff doesn't stink as bad as your bilges. ;-)
Kinda funny ping.
I actually saw a similar incident years ago. I was a construction inspector for an engineering company. We were building a new airside at Tampa Intl Airport, and we were blowing out the pressurized fuel delivery pipes to the gates. We had a hose from the underground valve to the intake of a tanker truck, to catch all the fuel.
The contractor had a 1' wrench to turn the valves, and he did fine for about 3 or 4. Finally, he got to a valve that he couldn't shut off. The tanker got fuller and fuller. I was standing on top of the tank, watching the level rise. Once I knew that we weren't going to stop it, I jumped off and ran fro my truck. MASSIVE FUEL SPILL!!
We had Hazmat all over the place in a few minutes, and the guy was summarily fired for neglecting to use the 2' wrench. Needless to say, there was hundreds of yards of contaminated soil that had to be disposed of.
he stuff we used on ships didn't stink, heck we used it to clean bilges.
Well, it might just be that the stuff doesn't stink as bad as your bilges. ;-)
May be right, but we used bug juice to improve te smell.
Jack
Rebel:
Thanks for the guffaw!
:O)
P
You're welcome.
You left out the photo of the guy's truck parked with the windows rolled down and filled with foam.
And all completely wrong:
http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123019117
'Foam test' e-mail overflows with perception problems
4/14/2006 - ELLSWORTH AIR FORCE BASE, S.D. (AFPN) -- A B-1 hangar is filled with more bubbles than a dinosaur-sized hot tub. There are people standing around with suds up to their eyeballs. People are standing on top of the rafters in the building as foam and bubbles continue to rise.
Did a glacier melt? Did some kind of ultra-secret government underground lab have a freak accident? Most importantly, which maintenance troop’s head rolled for this one?
Actually, it’s none of the above. Those who have seen the e-mail that seems to be burning up the communication lines across the Department of Defense need to brace themselves: That hangar at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D., was filled with foam on purpose.
That misleading e-mail with an attached slide presentation showing photos of the test has caused considerable work in correcting wrong information.
A modern high-expansion foam system was placed in the hangar to replace an aging fire suppression system, said Lt. Col. Navnit Singh, 28th Civil Engineer Squadron commander. The contractor responsible for installing the system submitted a plan prior to installation to test the system. The plan was approved, he said.
The test of the new foam system was conducted Aug. 23. Required coverage occurred within one minute of the system being activated. The test was so successful, the foam reached the observation platform where officials were documenting the procedure.
The Air Force required a minimum of one meter of foam to be achieved in four minutes or less. For testing purposes, the foam was allowed to disperse for the full four minutes.
The observers were surprised at how quickly the system generated the fire suppressing foam, Colonel Singh said.
The system worked so well the exterior door of the hangar had to be opened before the test was fully completed. These events account for the photos of the amount of foam inside and outside of the hangar.
So, did someone have a gross miscue? No. On the contrary, a fire suppression system responsible for helping protect vital mission-essential assets and, most importantly, for helping safeguard Airmen’s lives, worked extremely well. The foam system exceeded Air Force standards, Colonel Singh said.
The misrepresentation of this test has raised the level of awareness about the far-reaching effects of e-mail and technology.
Master Sgt. Dana Rogers, 28th Communications Squadron superintendent of network security, said e-mails such as the one depicting the foam test “misrepresent our capabilities” and can even cause damage to computer networks.
“You think it’s so funny, so you send it to 10 people. Then, they send it to 10 more. This takes up an extremely large amount of e-mail space and can lead to the loss of resources,” he said.
Another aspect of e-mails that miscommunicate facts is the amount of time someone may have to take in order to set the record straight. An e-mail that took two seconds to send caused a large number of man-hours to set straight.
“Any time spent responding to an incident like this is a drain on a very precious resource … time,” said Mark Wheeler, 28th CES deputy commander.
BTTT
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