Realistic ARFF Aircraft Training Tool

By Alan M. Petrillo

Airport fire departments and municipal fire districts that protect or provide mutual aid to airports often have to train in areas and with setups that don’t easily simulate aircraft fire and rescue work. So an Ocala, Florida, company has designed a tool for aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) training that is realistic and portable—an inflatable representation of a large commercial passenger jet aircraft.

Dubbed the Realistic Aircraft Tactical Trainer (RATT), the concept for the tool arose from the need to provide ARFF personnel with the ability to practice effective application and conservation of firefighting agent on a target that’s representative of what they could encounter when faced with an aircraft emergency, says Ross Riddell, director of SCR2, the company that builds RATT. “Our intent in developing the RATT was to create a training tool that gives emergency personnel the opportunity to develop and practice their operational procedures and firefighting tactics at any time and any location, either on or off the airport,” Riddell points out.

The RATT is 85 feet long when inflated, 25 feet high, and has an 80-foot wingspan that’s cut off just past the fuel fill inlets, Riddell says. It’s made of between 700 and 1,200 pounds of inflatable ballistic vinyl and the total RATT system weighs between 9,000 and 12,000 pounds with its trailer and inflation equipment.

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