Research on the Layout Design of Dual Tanks for Large Firefighting Aircraft

In recent years, the demand for the use of firefighting aircraft in forest firefighting in China has become increasingly urgent. However, the design difficulty of firefighting aircraft has greatly increased due to the concentrated loading of a large amount of extinguishing medium and the rapid change in weight and center of gravity before and after releasing the extinguishing medium. This paper focuses on the common dual tank layout of a certain type of large firefighting aircraft. Under the conditions of ensuring release efficiency, not exceeding the center of gravity limit, and reducing the amplitude of center of gravity change, numerical simulation calculation is used to find and approximate the optimal solution for the payload ratio and layout position of the dual tank. The results show that for a certain type of large firefighting aircraft, using this method can obtain the optimal solution for the dual tank payload capacity, tank release inclination angle, and the change in aircraft center of gravity before and after releases. At this time, the dual tank layout form is the most reasonable. The research results of this paper have been applied to domestic large firefighting aircraft project in China and can be used for all firefighting aircraft with dual tank layouts.