Video: Russian Tank with Fire-Fighting Water Turbines
From the description on the YouTube page: "The Hungarians replaced the turret from an old Russian tank with 2 turbines from a Mig 21. Water is injected in the exhaust, they throttle up and distinguish the fire."
(Thanks, Muh'lich!)
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I think you'll find they extinguish the fire
"Distinguish" the fire? "That! That over there, is the fire."
Seems german.
Technically not a "water turbine", but an air turbine engine whose exhaust is use to push water at high velocity.
Still cool, though, and ingenious use of existing tech. I am guessing the wind velocity is enough to draw water through the inlet tubes at a fair clip/force, I wonder if they could draw water from a nearby pond/lake with this thing.
This is so old, they used it to put out burning oil rigs after the first gulf war.
I suspect that this may be a repurposing of an old Warsaw Pact chemical warfare decontamination unit -- In those, a jet engine was used to spray a bleach solution to blast nerve and/or mustard gas residue off of armored vehicle hulls.
Serious swords into ploughshares device, even if its old I certainly agree with the idea.
They used these to "distinguish" well-head fires in Kuwaiti oil fields after the first Gulf War. I don't believe there was any water involved then, however; spin up the jets fast enough and the exhaust (which should be low on oxygen) deprives the fire of oxygen. Same concept as using explosives to put out a fire.
I think I remember seeing this footage. If I'm right, it was filmed in the period after the first Gulf War, when they were having to extinguish all the burning Kuwaiti oil wells that the retreating Iraqis had set on fire.
IIRC from the broadcast, this device is Hungarian. The only thing that's Russian about it is the provenance of the machinery the Hungarians repurposed to build it.
I think the video says the inventor's name is Wolfhart Willimczik. Unfortunately, it appears that the Wikipedia article on Willimczik has been removed for being insufficiently notable. The Wikipedian responsible says the decision is explained in the deletion review log, but there's nothing there; i.e., it's a typical "transparent process" at Wikipedia.
You can still see part of the original article -- it's stored there temporarily -- in Willimczik's user talk page.
Lord knows what's really happening. It's Wikipedia.
First part in English (original German):
The Hungarians recycled a Russian T34 tanks, thus creating a spectacular prototype called: Der große Wind (great wind/storm).
They took the turret and replaced it with jet-turbines of Russian MIG-21.
Water is injected in the exhaust, they throttle up and distinguish the fire.
Teresa, the relevant deletion discussion was at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Ball_piston_engine_%28Wolfhart_engine%29
which I found by looking at the deletion log http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Ball%20piston%20engine%20(Wolfhart%20engine) Wikipedia is generally transparent but one needs to know where to look. (The fact that you were treated horribly by a certain admin and his compatriots is highly unfortunate but doesn't make Wikipedia in general not transparent).
I remember this, too. My father at the time was involved in the other Hungarian fire 'distinguisher' (lol) company that used a huge pipe pushed in the fire and then one strong burst of air (or water) to blow out the fire...
Some amazing inventions surfaced in those times of need!
There is some footage of the machinery used after the war here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCi3g-u5qB4
Regardless of 'distinguish', old news, russian or german; That. Is. Awesome.
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I don't care to think how that would be used against a group of rioters or protestors.
I'm thinking we need to get in touch with the clever Hungarians who did this. We need their assistance again...only this time, against LOCUSTS !!
I think these, minus the water, might be able to roast large portions of locust swarms.
Of course the big trick is to kill the larval locusts before they surface, but short of that, we need the Hungarian Bug Roaster!
Is somebody working on this already?
Who controls/owns the well fire fighting tank?