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In the age of million dollar aerials, Advantage offers a completely remanufactured Aerialscope or Sutphen on a new chassis with a new body (and optional pump/tank) for about half the price of all new apparatus. Click on the See An Aerialscope Rebuilt page for details. Affordable, heavy duty, custom chassis — Most tankers are built on a two-door commercial chassis; but it is very handy to have a fire truck that can carry a full crew of fire fighters, especially when the piece is sent out to mutual aid operations. Most BIG new custom chassis that can carry 2500 gallons of water and still “get up and go” are prohibitively expensive, but the beefy capacity of an HME or Spartan custom tandem chassis is within the financial resources of almost any department. Special fast-dumping water tank — For maximum dumping rates, a tank’s 10” dump valve must be kept full of water for as long as possible; so Advantage now specifies a deep 10” sump for each dump valve that keeps the valve full of water until there is only 2” of water remaining in the tank (approximately 45 gallons in our “T” tanks). Recent factory tests show a 1920 gpm dump rate with these sumps. To remove water this fast from the tank, it also must be adequately vented; so we build an oversized 8” tank overflow tube. Advantage tanks are among the fastest dumping pumper-tanker tanks anywhere. 4" high speed rear tank fill — Our 4” rear fill pipe extends approximately 10 feet into the tank (instead of the typical 2.5” fill pipe penetrating only 18 inches, or even less) The 10 foot pipe, drilled with multiple diffusion holes, significantly reduces back pressure and significantly increases filling speed. The tank is reinforced and vented with an extra-large 8” vent for this high speed fill. We also install both a quarter turn valve and a check valve. With the quarter turn valve open, the check valve still prevents water flowing out of the pump during high speed fill & shuttle operations; when the operation is over, the quarter turn valve makes sure there are no leaks on the firehouse floor. 5” tank-to-pump line — Almost every fire apparatus comes with a too-small tank-to-pump line, which limits the amount of water a first arriving truck can pump from its tank. Advantage Apparatus assumes you specified a big gpm pump because you wanted big fire flows, so we build our own proprietary pump intake manifolds that can accept a massive 5 inch tank-to-pump line, which delivers 1250 gpm to the pump. For 1500 gpm pumps, we add a second 3” valve. See our Maximum Volume Suppression Package (below) for the hose and nozzles to handle this high flow most effectively. Superbly designed engineer’s cabinet — The engineer’s cabinet has two 400 lb. roll-out trays at the bottom of the compartment for easy access to heavy appliances and adapters; there is a plywood lining in the upper section, too, on which you can hang the additional fittings and adapters rural engineers need for coordinating with mutual aid companies . An optional adjustable height shelf can replace the plywood backing at no extra charge. Everything a rural engineer needs can be stored in this one, huge cabinet . Big “push button” foam system — FoamPro, with its foam injection pump, is the preferred system. Avoid specifying the smaller FoamPro 1600 and 2001 systems because only the 2002 model pumps enough 0.3%—0.4% Class A foam (5 gpm) to service the entire 1250-1500 gpm flow you can so easily obtain from our big tank-to-pump lines. Because Class A foam doubles (at least) the fire suppressing impact of every drop of water on solid fuel fires, the large FoamPro system gives you the equivalent of at least 2500 gpm knock-down capacity from tank water. Pumping the water from other trucks (including mutual aid tankers) through your Foam Dragon’s foam system doubles the impact of every drop of water they carry, too. It’s like every nozzle man’s output is doubled, your 2500 gallon pumper-tanker becomes a 5000 gallon rig and all other available tankers double in size with the addition of this one $10,000 option. Fast deploying hard suction tubes — The traditional method of attaching two hard suction tubes together, then to a steamer, is time consuming and takes two people. Advantage encourages departments to spec that the two tubes be stored already screwed together into one 20’ length that lays in a special trough along the top of the cabinets and drapes down to be secured in a cup located near the steamer. Even without pre-connecting this hose to the steamer (see below), a single fire fighter can haul this hose down to the ground and connected it to the steamer much faster than two fire fighters can deploy two separate tubes. Effective drafting system — Switching from pumping on-board tank water to pumping from the dump tank is very difficult and the pump often loses prime. To solve this problem, Advantage Apparatus places a butterfly valve behind the panel in one of the steamer intakes and couples that with a 3-way primer valve; so you can choose to prime from outboard of the butterfly valve and draw water right up to the valve before opening it. When combined with a preconnected 20’ hard suction tube (see above) and a swivel connection on the steamer, this preconnected hard suction system takes just seconds for one person to deploy. Ultra-low friction loss plumbing — Typical pump plumbing on other trucks is filled with 90 degree elbows (look and see) that rob your pump of its power at every turn. Advantage pumps are plumbed with high pressure hose wherever possible, which keeps 90 degree elbows to a minimum. The balance of plumbing is steel. Useful deck gun controls — With side mount pump panels, most deck guns never get used; and a big reason why is that a lot of water is wasted between the time you open the discharge at the pump panel and the time you can climb to the gun and aim it properly. Advantage suggests departments move the discharge control and pressure gauge from the pump panel to the gun itself so no water goes into the gun until it is aimed in the right direction. And when you open up the discharge, the electronic pressure governor gives you the correct pressure without robbing water from any of the hose lines. High-flow 2.5” crosslay discharges — Almost all crosslays on other trucks are fed by a 2” discharge and 2” steel pipe with 1.5” swivel elbows at the end (plus a lot of 90 degree elbows before that). But Advantage feeds those crosslays with 2.5” discharges and 2.5” high pressure hose with 2.5” swivels at the end, which maximizes the flow and minimizes the friction loss on these important and often used lines. See our Maximum Volume Suppression Package (below) for the hose and nozzles to handle this high flow most effectively. High flow 2.5" rear discharges — Preconnected rear discharges are a powerful tool, but it’s a long and twisting way from the pump to the rear of the truck; so Advantage plumbs its rear 2.5” discharges with 2.5 inch high pressure hose to make sure the water gets there with minimal friction loss. Remember: you can use 1.75” hose off these discharges, too. See our Maximum Volume Suppression Package (below) for the hose and nozzles to handle this high flow most effectively. High flow 2.5" front discharge — It’s also a long and twisting way from the pump to the front of the truck, so Advantage plumbs its front discharge with 2.5 inch high pressure hose and a 2.5” swivel at the end to make sure the water gets out the (1.75”?) hose with minimal friction loss. See our Maximum Volume Suppression Package (below) for the hose and nozzles to handle this high flow most effectively High flow 3” x 5" Storz LDH side discharge — When you need to pump big water fast to another engine, you need a 3 inch discharge plumbed with a straight pipe right off the pump that can flow the capacity of the pump into 5 inch hose. (You need big tank-to-pump lines, too.) Extra-deep rescue cabinets—Part of the “beefy capacity” of a tandem axle chassis is the extra body length, which allows you to have more cabinets and much deeper cabinets while still carrying a lot of water. Upper rescue cabinets on Advantage apparatus are 10” deep (enough to store a full SCBA unit) and lower cabinets are 25” deep. Pressure Governor — Perhaps the most important component of any short-handed, volunteer fire department’s apparatus is the pressure governor. The governor is like a “cruise control” for the pump because it automatically maintains constant pressure in all hose lines by adjusting the engine rpm. NFPA standards let it substitute for the pressure relief valve, which can only keep the pump from over pressurizing a line but cannot add additional pressure to the system when more flow is needed (or when water pressure to the intakes is reduced). Not only do nozzle men on new lines get enough water immediately when the pressure governor is running the pump (and never too much), but nobody loses pressure in the existing open hose lines when the additional nozzles are opened up, either—a considerable safety factor for interior firefighters who are depending on a steady, high-flow stream of water. A pressure governor permits your deck gun control to be far from the pump panel, too, because the pump pressure will automatically be adjusted when the quarter-turn valve located right at the gun is opened and closed. You can aim the gun before you waste precious water. In short, the pressure governor handles pump pressure so swiftly that even less experienced pump operators can manage the pump under challenging, multi-line conditions and still have time to untangle hose and offer other support to nozzle men. Transducer-based, FRC 9-light water level gauge — This 9-light gauge is far more precise than the typical 4-light gauge, which also only measures the height of the water instead of computing the actual gallons. As an option, the FRC can be tied to the horn or siren, too, to generate a low water level warning for the entire fire ground. And when the truck is used for supply operations, an additional gauge inside the cab makes it easy for the driver to know when he has delivered his load. Pump compartment heater and heat pan — Freezing your pump and cracking the case can ruin your whole day. Consider a heat pan in your specifications to retain heat from the engine, the pump and a dedicated22,000 BTU pump compartment heater to protect your pump against really cold weather. New rear ladder access to hosebed — Falls account for more firefighter injuries than anything else; so when you ask firefighters to climb up on top of the truck, we like to give them something better than little fold-down steps to stand on. The importance of a ladder really shows up when climbing back down off the truck at night. Multiple 12v scene lights — One big reason why so many fire fighters fall is that they can’t see where they are going (no streetlights in the country). Advantage mounts three big 12v scene lights on each side of the truck and two more on the rear (tied to the back up lights) so the area around the apparatus is lit up like a small city. New hose-loading platform on rear facet — Loading hose is hard work, especially at the end of a drill or fire fight, so we give firefighters a wide, safe and convenient place to stand for this task. Through-the-tank ladder storage — There is no reason to spend $3000-$5000 for a hydraulic ladder rack just to save cabinet space when the Advantage through-the-tank ladder rack is easy to use, simple and cheap. It also requires no maintenance. Storing ladders without giving up cabinet space is an expensive option on most trucks, but Advantage makes it affordable Additional performance items not usually found on other trucks in our price range — enclosed pike pole and attic ladder compartment; storage for 8 additional SCBA bottles in one lower cabinet (in addition to optional storage for 5-6 bottles in wheel well cabinets); and a special hose tray in the main hose bed for two layers of 2.5” preconnected hose so your rear preconnects won’t consume a lot of lateral hose bed space. Maximum Volume Suppression Package —Since you must purchase attack hose, nozzles and a deck gun anyway, we strongly and enthusiastically recommend that you consider our optional “Maximum Volume Fire Suppression Package” ($6000) as another powerful way to bring the Advantage Foam Dragon’s massive fire suppression potential to life. The Maximum Volume Fire Suppression Package includes a Vindicator Heavy Attack aspirating nozzle attached to 200’ of Ponn Conquest 1.75” hose (very low friction loss) on each 2.5” x 1.75” crosslay discharge, which allows just one firefighter to deliver 250 gpm from a single crosslay because the nozzle works at only 50 psi nozzle pressure (“NP”). The ultra-low friction Conquest hose is important because 250 gpm flowing through ordinary 1.75” hose generates huge friction losses (140+/- psi over 200’) and the pump would have to run at close to 200 psi to keep 50 psi at the tip. With the Conquest, you always can run at less than 150 psi pump pressure, which allows you preserve the total potential of your 1250-1500 gpm pump. In addition, the Maximum Volume Suppression Package includes a Vindicator Blitz Attack aspirating nozzle on each of the two 2.5” rear pre-connects, which allows a single firefighter to deliver 325 gpm from one of these lines because this nozzle also works at only 50 psi NP (special hose not needed here because friction loss on any 2.5” line at this gpm is minimal). Most fire fighters are unable to move a full 2.5” hose line across the fire ground by themselves but even a smaller fire fighter can easily operate the 50 psi NP Blitz Attack nozzle at 325 gpm while standing or sitting and direct the stream in many useful directions. Of course, all Foam Dragon discharges (including the crosslays) are 2.5” so 1.75” hose (Ponn Conquest needed) could be installed on the rear pre-connects along with the smaller Heavy Attack nozzles, as an option. A department also could choose to install 2.5” hose on the crosslays, although this is unusual. And finally, the Maximum Volume Suppression Package specifies a Vindicator Master Attack aspirating nozzle (on a deck gun of your choice) that can flow 1000 gpm at 80 psi NP. All of these Vindicator nozzles produce a stream of very heavy droplets (unlike the misty droplets of a fog nozzle or the solid stream from a smoothbore) that you can see clearly and which stay together for the entire reach of the stream, landing with a solid “footprint” on the fire and penetrating deeply to absorb noticeably larger quantities of heat than either smoothbore or fog streams at similar distances. Fire Rescue magazine, August 2002, printed a very persuasive test of these nozzles, and you may review the manufacturer’s statements on their potential at www.1ststriketech.com. The other very significant element in these nozzles’ design is that they make the finest quality foam. They are the only nozzles with the aspirating capacity built-in to the basic nozzle design (allowing greater flow) and it is the aspiration of the foam solution that is crucial to good foam production.
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