PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Runway Foaming
Thread: Runway Foaming
View Single Post
Old 25th Jul 2004, 03:49
  #2 (permalink)  
av8boy
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: California USA
Posts: 719
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I've only been doing ATC for 23 years, but my impression is that foaming the runway (in the US anyway) fell out of favor before I was a pup. And I quote:


The effectiveness of runway foaming is not fully substantiated by the real evidence of operational incident studies. Neither the International Fire Service Training Association (IFSTA) nor the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) recommends the practice. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Airport Services Manual Part 1, Rescue and Fire Fighting, Third Edition – 1990, contains a chapter (Chapter 15) on foaming runways for emergency landings. The chapter addresses the theoretical benefits from foaming runways, but then describes the shortcomings of those benefits. It also describes operational problems that should be evaluated to determine the feasibility of foaming a runway.

Some of the problems are as follows:
• The difficulty of determining for certain the type of emergency that would lend itself to the practice such as the position and condition of landing gear.
• The time element available for accomplishing the production and distribution of the foam covering that may take up to an hour or more.
• The reliability of information on the landing techniques to be used relating to wind and visibility conditions, pilot experience and skill, visual and radio aids available and the aircraft operational problems.
• The foam-making capability and adequacy of the equipment available. Airports not having adequate equipment should not attempt to lay a foam blanket. If the runway is to be foamed, it is essential that additional supplies of foam are available and the ability of the ARFF service to deal with any concurrent or subsequent aircraft accident must be assured.
• The effect the foam laying and clean-up operations will have upon the aircraft movements at the airport and how this will affect the safety of all aircraft operations in progress.
• The weather conditions during and immediately after the laying of a foam blanket. Foam should not be laid during heavy rain or snowfall conditions.
Again, I'm not so much passing on the efficacy of runway foaming myself as I am encouraging you to consider the possibility that your request will be met with a big "unable." Regardless of the manufacturer's recs, and regardless of your request, it simply might not be available. Honestly, in my career I've had a few requests for this, and the answer has always been the same from ARFF... unable.

Dave
av8boy is offline