Safe operations of helicopters during aerial work (DGUV Information 214-911)
Abschnitt 6.8 – 6.8 Fire-fighting/forest fire-fighting flights
Flights to combat forest fires are external load flights, whereby extinguishing agents are jettisoned to combat fires.
Additional equipment
For the transport and spreading of extinguishing agents, among others:
water dropping systems (e.g. Bambi Buckets) and
extinguishing agent dosage systems
can be used. This additional equipment can be provided with aviation authority approvals.
Power-operated water dropping systems that are operated as external load are to be allocated to the application area of the Machinery Directive. In these cases a declaration of conformity and a label (CE marking) are necessary.
Fixation on the helicopter should be carried out in such a way that the actual container is not in the area of the maximum downwash (about 1.5 times the rotor diameter).
At the same time, it must be prevented that it can reach the tail rotor in the case of strong swinging up of the container.
Flight operation
Special regulations for the execution of flight tasks are issued by the local operations units within the scope of disaster assignments. The employer must coordinate the preparatory and accompanying coordination of the assignment with the disaster operations centre.
Further measures to minimise hazards can result from the risk assessment.