How much water can they eat?

[nodrama]

Might not answer your question exactly because there are alot of variables, but I can give you an example to gauge an estimate on:

Our operation water rinses it's engines, 'hot', on a light twin helicopter. The procedure involves delivering about 8 ltrs of water directly into the compressor, over 2 minutes, so at a rate of 0.07 ltrs/ sec. This is the recommended delivery rate to avoid flame-outs during the rinses. Assume the people that came up with that figure are being cautious, so it could most probably manage 0.1 ltr per second. That's 6 ltrs a minute, which is alot of rain.

[heliduck]

I need some help from the Sydney boys here as I'm "Google" eyed with no results. Quite a few years ago a Police or Rescue AS365(I think) was hovering over a rocky ledge near Sydney. A wave came in & as it crashed into the rocks the resultant spray caused a flameout in one engine. I believe the pilot kept it upright & settled onto a rock ledge. Can anyone help with the details or a link?

[John Eacott]

Many military airfields these days have bird baths for washing aircraft after flight, mostly to rinse off salt deposits:



Operating from NAS Nowra on bushfires, the tower were good enough to turn on their birdbath for us after a day in the smoke and embers: the view from inside the BK117:




Certainly effective, and it didn't put out the engines