The San Carlos Airport Association is happy to pass along an announcement of the new fire truck at San Carlos Airport (in service starting April, 2017). The following message from Chris St. Peter, Assistant Airport Manager, summarizes background for our new truck, shown below in photos from the manufacturer’s web site.
Our old Airport One for San Carlos and Half Moon Bay came online in mid-2002. 15 years is a long time for a fire truck. In fact, the FAA only expects airports to maintain grant-funded equipment for 10 years. We were starting to run into issues with finding spare parts and more often than not, we were finding that we needed to take it out of service for non-scheduled repairs.
Prior to ordering a replacement, Operations staff sat down and discussed what they liked about the existing truck and what they would like to see in the new vehicle. New technology has been introduced since the original Airport One was built and we wanted to make sure it was added to the new truck.
It’s also important to remember that Airport One really is an all purpose vehicle. We use if for many things. Everything from responding to aircraft incidents, haz-mat response to towing trailers.
Some of the new features include:
*An Elkhart Sidewinder EXM Bumper Monitor – This allows staff to deploy water/AFFF (foam) while remaining inside the cab via a joystick-like control.
*A high capacity inverter for in-field use of power tools.
*An air compressor for inflating tires and other equipment
*LED scene lighting
*Larger cab for storage
*LOWER MAINTENANCE COSTS
We’ll be looking to replace Half Moon Bay’s truck this Fiscal Year. Additionally, we will likely take the two best parts of both old Airport Ones (the body of San Carlos truck and the bed/storage boxes of Half Moon Bay) and combine them into one truck so we have a backup truck for when one of the new trucks goes in for scheduled maintenance.
