Romanian Air Force adopts new fire fighting system

Caylym Technologies, a California-based developer and manufacturer of wildfire suppression solutions, has begun shipping its Guardian aerial fire fighting system to the Romanian Air Force, to support the European Union Civil Protection Mission that utilises C-27J Spartan aircraft.

Guardian units are specialised corrugated paper containers, each of which can hold over 260 gallons (1,181 litres) of water or fire retardant. Up to 16 of the containers can be dropped from the air, depending on the aircraft, and will open in mid-air to create a rain that soaks and suppresses target fires. The majority of rear-loading planes can drop Guardians from between 800 and 1,000 ft (250 to 300 m) above ground.

Rick Goddard, managing director of Caylym Technologies, commented: “After nine years of extensive development and testing, the Guardian System was certified by Alenia last November. We are very pleased to see the adoption of our system in Europe.” Italian aircraft manufacturer Alenia Aermacchi, which produces the Spartan cargo planes used by the Romanian Air Force, conducted the certification jointly with the Air Force. “The Romanian Air Force will use the capability locally and intends to support the European Union’s aerial fire fighting mission,” continued Goddard. “When the final units arrive, we will be sending our training team over to Romania to conduct expanded training with both ground and air crews.”

Looking to the future, sales and marketing team leader Garrett Miller added: “We are currently in talks with two major cargo aircraft manufacturers and several individual countries on certifying our system to be used on their aircraft to combat wildfires. The Guardian System … requires no aircraft modification to be used to attack wildfires. Our goal is to see [it] join with the existing resources nationally and internationally to help preserve life, property and resources.”