A little while ago there was a secret government aerospace program set up to finance the development of new emergency response aircraft... While the program was active, a start-up, Hydralift Inc., had successfully secured some of this funding for the research and development of a new aerial firefighting response unit, r+d that would lead eventually to the production of a fully licensed functional prototype... Enter: The C-88 Hydralift Heron, also known as. . .
WITH A TOTAL WORKLOAD CAPACITY of 10,000 LITRES, REQUIRING ONLY 500 METRES OF SKIMMING SURFACE IN 10 SECONDS OF CONTACT, SHE CAN DELIVER IN THE SPAN OF ONE WORKING DAY, AN AVERAGE OF 500,000 LITRES!!!
WITH PERFORMANCE DYNAMICS THIS SOPHISTICATED, SHE BECOMES NOT ONLY THE MOST EFFICIENT WAY TO MOVE WATER BY PLANE ON THE PLANET, BUT ALSO, A TRULY GLOBAL FIREFIGHTING FORCE, CAPABLE OF MASTERING ANY PARTICULAR TERRAIN, WHATEVER HELLSCAPE SCENARIO THE CALL OF DUTY BRINGS HER INTO.
All this, of course, is built atop the sterling legacy of the De Havilland CL-200 series and all its derivatives, the most capable purpose-built water bomber on the planet. Made in Canada. The CL-415 has a top end load of 6,136 litres. . . not bad. . . top speed of 359 km/h. . . total distance required to scoop load 1341 metres.
As Stefano Pesucci says, regarded by many as the World Ace in aerial firefighting pilotage (based Toscana, Italy):
“She is simply a beauty to fly.”
But like many another iconic aircraft spewing out jet-fuel stink. . .
She’s 1950s technology.
Although the CL-415 blows all of its competition away upon comparative analysis/evaluation, it lacks the capacity to inspire the new generation confronted with the reality of an evermore unmanageable and apocalyptic fire geography.
Fire is NOT in a healthy balance.
Firedove seeks to restore healthy balance to whatever degree possible.
Fire suppression is a large part of the problem: 20th Century practice of carpet bomb extinguishment preserving corporate timber, unnatural forest evolution, unnaturally dry undergrowth, old, unresilient forests. . .
Best form of future management where the situation is out of control is
Tactical, efficient, precise. . .
Fire needs to burn and ecologies must evolve. But human productivity needn’t be lost and towns and cities needn’t be destroyed.
Propelled by magnetic turbine technology: surplus power generation recharging batteries indefinitely.
Conventional Aerial Firefighting Fatigue
It is an unreasonably stressful task being a water bomber pilot day in, day out, sometimes for hours on end. . . the concentration and dynamism required (to say nothing of improvisation) to not only accomplish the mission, but stay alive yourself, all the while preserving the most valuable asset of all ― the AIRCRAFT!! TALL ORDER.
SOLUTION?
THE CYBERNETIC HOMEOSTAT BRAIN
Best thought of as very advanced auto-pilot. . .
But, instead of an A.I. that rapes the ocean floor of the internet like a dragnet trawler, the Cybernetic Homeostat Brain is collecting and generating its own unique data set… its experiences, and its memory of them. All the time.
The Cybernetic Brain
SENSORS (BLUE) & EFFECTORS (RED)
THESE SYNAPSES, OR RELAYS, OR NEURONES,
COMMUNICATE INFORMATION DATA,
IN THIS CASE, RECORDED DATA-SETS OF ALL FLIGHT OPERATIONS OVER TIME. . .
SPEED, LOAD, EVERY MANEUVER, EVERY DATA POINT, BANKED, AND BUSSED BACK AND FORTH IN THE CONSTANT INTERPLAY OF FLIGHT DYNAMICS.
MUCH LIKE ECHO-LOCATION. . .
EACH SENSOR-EFFECTOR NODE GATHERS ITS UNIQUE INFORMATION SET CONSTANTLY, AND USES THAT STORED INFO TO INFORM AND AFFECT PRESENT CIRCUMSTANTIAL DECISION MAKING, ALTERING AIRCRAFT’S BEHAVIOUR.
IT’S BEEN HERE BEFORE — IN ITS MACHINE-LEARN TRAINING. . . A CONSTANT PUSH AND PULL BETWEEN MEMORY BANKED AND PRESENT FELT.
THE HOMEOSTAT
The Homeostat is a non-binary computer invented by Ross Ashby in 1948 in England out of surplus aircraft parts from WWII.
This is the core architecture of Firedove Intelligence.
Essentially a collection of sensor/effector relays, or synapses (or neurones), the Homeostat seeks equilibrium by balancing out input flows and output flows on a variety of different metrics (Wikipedia).
In Firedove, there are 44 such relays (88 units total), each pertaining to a different, essential flight operation. These are centralized in a common node, and connected to a sizable memory hard-drive.
The homeostat collects, aggregates, and stores electronic data simultaneously, seeking balance between the input flows and output flows. It does this also, to a varying degree, for outside air, fire, smoke and water conditions. It accomplishes this mainly through the use of Lidar, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging. It is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to elements of the landscape.
INVESTMENT
IN
FIREDOVE
PAYS
DIVIDENDS
IN
PROPERTY PRESERVATION
WITH
NO LOSS TO
HUMAN
PRODUCTIVITY
>Hinged wing for rapid climb. . .
Now, just as literally this whole thing was getting off the ground, in typical government fashion, it was unclear how the firedove program was going to make anybody any money given the sizable capital expenditure required to really get the building going. . . AND: because of the potential disruptive nature to vested interests of a radical new energy-surplus propulsion technology. Further funding was cut and the coveted flight operations license was revoked.
Nevermind the whole point was to create an open-source technology that could be replicated inexpensively at scale, and modified according to technological breakthroughs over time in a decentralized manner. An aircraft for all.
Nevermind it is estimated that between 1939-1945 the combined allied and axis forces produced a staggering 100,000 or so aircraft... bombers, fighters, survey reconnaissance... the B-25, a medium range bomber with specs quite similar to the Firedove, had a total production of 9816 units in less than 5 years.
Can you imagine what 10,000 Firedove bases look like across a continent?!!!
Anyway, before any one of those federal agents set their greasy paws upon an acetylene torch ready to gut the firedove in her sleep, somebody, and we don’t know who, picked the lock to ol’ C-88, opened the hangar door, fired up those hyper magnets, and disappeared, never to be seen again.
We’ll never know for sure if indeed it was designed by animals... but it is said that the smoke was getting so bad that a great council of all the Placental mammals — those descended from the rodent ancestor who survived the dinosaur apocalypse * — was summoned.
Whale was there, Otter, Beaver, Bear, Wolf, Fox, Moose, Deer. And, as representatives of some of the other great animal clans: Turtle, Frog, Hawk, Gull, and Raven. A representative of Homo Sapiens was also invited to attend, as they were the ones who got everyone into this mess in the first place, and perhaps could get us all out too.
“The aircraft should have my belly and tail,” Whale said.
“And my wings,” added Gull.
Hawk and Raven would design the power cells as they knew about speed best.
It would not run on fossil fuel.
“We must look to the earth’s core geologic architecture for inspiration,” Turtle said.
After brief discussion and analysis, they had a collective revelation: the aircraft’s motion must be generated by the same force that enlivens the heart of the planet — the magnetism of solid iron.
It was sketched out and decided: She’d have two twin sister engines that would be hyper-magnet turbines.
Frog, cold blooded, suggested the Firedove’s electrical systems be powered entirely by the power of the sun.
“She must circle endlessly the sky, like those great Albatross in the Pacific, providing help and safety to those who needed it most first, and slowly bring fire back into a healthy balance.”
Otter suggested the solar panels be made of the shiny inside of Abalone shells.
Finally, Turtle wrote the code for the artificial intelligence that would govern the Firedove’s thought systems: It would work on a long, slow geologic timescale.
Everyone agreed and it was decided they would have Homo Sapiens build the Bomber of Peace.
A small outfit was contracted on the shores of the Great Lakes who could procure only the most sacred earth materials for sustainable, long-lasting flight.
When its creators came to be in great conflict over how it might be deployed, and for whose benefit, it was decided a covert team of operatives authorized by the Placental Council would set the Firedove free. It climbed into the clouds and disappeared.
A story is told by an old commercial airline mechanic from Alert Station, Ellesmere Island, who once nursed the plane back to health. The weather was howling, snow blowing sideways. The plane appeared out of nowhere, it just barely landed with a shot aileron, and one engine down. Although she could go for days, weeks, months even, every now and then routine maintenance would need to be performed. From time to time she would call upon a safe, quiet strip to lie down... far from prying eyes. To have the Firedove visit your airport was one of the most sacred of occurrences.
As such, she always got the royal treatment.
When your children are crying in fear and anxiety, remind them that the Firedove is circling above, watching over, doing the best it can. If you say a little prayer for it on its journey, it might visit you in your most desperate time of need.
The next feather you see, say a prayer for the Firedove.
Notes:
* Yong, E. Face-to-face with the earliest ancestor of all placental mammals. Nature (2013) https://rdcu.be/drqvM
“There is no time.” — Lou Reed
Through the exercise of self-preservation, we will naturally rediscover what it is we truly value.
And just think about all the jobs...
