3000 Gallon ARFF Vehicles

[Firescrapper96]

We are going to buy two new Crash Trucks, I am looking for some good information, so we end up with better vehicles than the last time. Please post some links if you know of any, thanks.

[tny]

Take a look at E-One & Oshkosh. Both have sold their units globally to major commercial & military airports/agencies. They are probably two of the largest U.S. manufacturers of ARFF vehicles in the world and have excellent reputations. E-One & Oshkosh sink large sums of money into R&D and have recently introduced new models.

My observation - for what its worth, would be to stay away from the lower cost part-time MFG's in the business. They lack the proven track record, financial resources and global experience to produce units with the features that E-One and Oshkosh posses. I've also attached a link to a periodical dedicated solely to Aviation Firefighting.

There are a couple of European MFG’s that I’m not familiar with and parts sourcing could be an issue.

Hope this helps & good luck on your research.

http://www.e-one.com/pressrelease_display.asp?id=62]
http://www.e-one.com/arff.asp
http://www.oshkoshtruck.com/ (Click on Airport & Municipal)
http://www.aviationfirejournal.com

[FyredUp]

I would look very closely at OshKosh. They have been a mainstay ARFF builder for decades.

As a former civilian firefighter on an Air National Guard base we received a P-23, an E-One ARFF vehicle. Heck it was an amazing piece of equipment when it worked. Roughly, in total time out of service, it spent 7 of the first 12 months we had it down. It expereienced brake problems, pump shift problems, a complete transmission failure, tire inflation system problems (such as if you made a hard turn the inside tires would rapidly deflate), the front hose tray would come open as you were driving down the runway(we fixed it by putting a barrel bolt on it), the last I heard the Air Force had an alert out on this vehicle to not drive it over 35 mph emergency and not over 15 non-emergency. All in all not what I would call a reliabel vehicle. Now mind you this was of course a vehicle for the military. But both of our Oshkosh rigs of much older vintage didn't have near the down time of this "Modern" E-One.

Anecdotal? Yes, but my experience.

Good luck,

FyredUp

[CAPN22]

I was surprised by the speed ratings on the P23 and did some web searches figuring there would be more on this issue. I did find out that the P23 had locking diff's and a warning not to exceed these speeds with the diffs locked. I can see that.

Anyone who has locking front and rear diffs on thier 4x4 knows how hard it is to control a vehicle with the diffs locked when turning.

This would also explain the rapid tire deflation on hard corners. If the diff is locked when cornering it would cause the inner tire to spin on the rim as the tire will turn slower than the rim and break the bead on the inside tire allowing air to leave the tire. Due to the nature of these tires the bead would seat very quickly again once the vehicle is going straight but you would have a lower pressure.

Cornering with your diffs locked will also wreak havoc with power dividers (tcase, transmission) from the driveline torquing and releasing into a corner( Caused by the uneven tire rotation speeds by cornering). This is usually felt at a slow speed into a tight corner. This torque bounce will shockload the power divider and its very hard on the internal clutch packs and could take out a transmission in no time.

Just some thoughts.

Andy