Archives > 2007 > September 2007 > Simulator For Engineer Training Gets High Marks 

September 2007

Simulator For Engineer Training Gets High Marks 

By Lyn Bixby

Jeff Clifton was an assistant chief and training officer with the DeCordova (Texas) Volunteer Fire Department when he came up with an idea that is likely to change the course of his professional life.

“The chief and I had just promoted two guys to engineer and I was trying to get them some hands-on training,” he recalled. “Typically what we’d do is hook up to a plug, get a bunch of guys to hold hoses and start flowing some water. Well, I couldn’t find enough volunteers to hold the hose, and the water department was getting on me about wasting all that water.”

Clifton, who is also a career firefighter at the Fort Worth Fire Department about 30 miles away, had a background in electronics.

“I started thinking of different ways that I could capture water and hold the hoses and not have to have a bunch of people,” he said, “and this design kind of came to me.”

What he came up with was a concept of a trailer-mounted tank with a computer-activated simulator that could be attached to a pump on an apparatus using hard suction. Sections of hose would connect the pump’s discharges to the simulator’s control valves, completing a closed-loop system that could be used for pump testing as well as training. The ability of pump operators to evaluate problems and take corrective action would be challenged by running a variety of computer-generated scenarios that could be tailored to the equipment and needs of individual departments.

Clifton built the first simulator in his garage and wrote the computer software himself. It took him nearly a year, and in the fall of 2005, his new company, FD Training Systems, Inc., conducted its first class.

Firefighters who have been through the training and training officers who have used the simulator give it overwhelmingly positive reviews.

“They were faced with situations they had rarely seen in the field, and they wanted to know when they would be able to pump again,” said Terry Martin, the training division chief for Cobb County (Ga.) Fire and Emergency Services. “Very seldom does the training chief get asked to come back.”

Saving Water

Martin’s department, which has 28 stations covering the metro-Atlanta area, leased the simulator for a month this spring for $6,000 and put 420 engineers and firefighters through the training. Based on that experience, he said he is requesting funding to buy at least one. He figured using the simulator saved over 7 million gallons of water, and this year in drought-stricken Georgia, that was significant. “At around a half a cent a gallon,” he said, “we saved $36,000.”

The first sale of an FD Training Systems simulator was made this spring to the Kent (Wash.) Fire Department, which has about 165 paid uniformed firefighters and seven stations covering a 65-square mile area south of Seattle.

“There’s lots of programs around that give you this computer based stuff, and you can simulate this and that, but to actually have our hands on our own fire engines, our own pumps, was kind of a unique deal,” said Mike Lant, the department’s engineer instructor. “It allows us to flow up to 800 gallons a minute using up to four attack lines and not spill a drop of water on the ground.”

Computer Readout

Because it’s portable, he said the unit has been rotated among the stations. “Guys can train on it when they’ve got some down time and it doesn’t require anybody actually being there to run the program,” he said. “It pretty much runs itself, and at the end of the session you’re given a computer readout that tells you how you did.”

By using the simulator, he said the department’s firefighters learned to cope with situations that could not be duplicated by flowing water in a parking lot. “They needed to see what happened when you simulated a hose break,” he said, “or there were four lines going out and two aren’t being used and then all of a sudden four are being used and then back to two again and the opening and closing of the nozzles.”

Lant said other training officers in the Seattle area are so interested in the device that he expects to turn his simulator into a money-maker for the Kent Fire Department by offering to train firefighters from other departments.

“We’re putting out feelers to see if this can indeed be a revenue-generating product, and we think it can be,” he said. “Other departments are hungry for good solid training, and I think we can provide that.”

Both Lant and Martin said they are not aware of any similar type of product.

“We are the only one on the planet that manufactures this,” Clifton declared. “We own the patent and all the technology, and all of the software code I write myself. I don’t share that with anyone.”

He said the simulator is capable of a wide range of scenarios. “We can go to the computer and tell it that there is really 250 feet of hose on one line, 200 on another and 300 each on the third and fourth discharges,” Clifton said. “The computer calculates the friction loss and hose coefficients. Then the engineer has to pump the correct pressures to achieve the 100 pounds per square inch required at the nozzle.”

British Petroleum

The computer records the flows and pressures at the nozzle, then provides a printout of how well the engineer performed. By contrast, he said, the only feedback from traditional hands-on training is watching the water flowing out of the nozzle.

With FD Training’s simulator, he said, “Not only do they get to read the actual pump panel and gauges, but they can hear the pump and the engine operate, which tells you a lot about what is happening. Also, they have to respond to actual radio traffic.”

The company’s fourth simulator, its largest and most expensive, is scheduled for completion this month. It is being sold to British Petroleum and is expected to be deployed in Azerbaijan, which borders Russia, Iran and the Caspian Sea in Southwestern Asia.

“We designed it to operate with their largest apparatus pump, which is 3,000 gpm,” Clifton said. “It will do the full spectrum of training and their pump testing.”

A Young Company

The BP simulator is equipped with a 2,500-gallon tank and sold for about $80,000, he said. That sale, he said, is expected to open up more industrial business for his company.

A FD Training Systems simulator designed for training at a municipal fire department is priced starting at about $40,000, according to Clifton. The price increases slightly to also use the simulator for testing pumps up to 2,000 gpm, he said, and it jumps significantly for testing pumps above 2,000 gpm.

The two other simulators made so far by FD Training Systems are being used for training and demonstrations.

“We are a very young company,” Clifton said, “and things are really starting to pick up for us, a lot faster than we anticipated.”

He said he has six anticipated orders for simulators from departments that are lining up funding to buy them.

The company is leasing a shop to make the units. It is its third shop, with each one being larger than the last. Clifton said he will continue to rent space until he can afford to build a manufacturing facility more suited to the company’s needs. He has two other firefighters working with him to make simulators and manage company affairs, and he has another group of firefighters who work as trainers for the company.

“I expected by this time in the company’s life we’d be doing one or two classes a month, and last week we ended up with three fire departments in one week,” he said.  “We’re getting a lot of the larger fire departments for training now.”

FD Training Systems is approved to offer a complete driver/operator certification course through the Texas Commission on Fire Protection and the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress (IFSAC).

One development that surprised Clifton is the demand for pump testing. “Our pump testing service has really taken off,” he said. “It started out to be just kind of a side thing, and we’re getting requests almost every day to come and test trucks.”

NFPA 1911

One reason, he said, is the National Fire Protection Association 1911 standard, which defines the minimum requirements for establishing an inspection, maintenance, and testing program for in-service fire apparatus. “They want clean, clear water and they’re kind of frowning on people using the lakes to do their pump testing, and there’s just not that many pump test facilities,” Clifton said. “So we’re able to go right to the station and do the pump test.”

He said a lot of smaller rural departments are hiring FD Training Systems to conduct training and pump testing as a combined two-day package.

One limitation of the simulator, mentioned by Mike Lant, the engineer instructor at the Kent (Wash.) Fire Department, is its inability to imitate a pressurized water source.

Pressurized Water Source

But Clifton said his company has developed a way to deal with that. “We hook up two engines to the simulator,” he said. “One acts as a hydrant engine, and the other is an attack or manifold engine. We hook up a single 4-inch or 5-inch [large diameter hose] from the hydrant engine to the manifold engine for a pressurized water source, and the manifold engine sends the four lines back to the simulator.”

The computerized scenarios run the same as with a single engine, he said, and offer even more options for scenarios with two engines.

The other alternative for imitating a pressurized water source, he said, is mounting a supplemental pump on the simulator. “It works great,” he said. “The only issue is it’s so expensive. That little option runs almost $20,000 for the pump.”

For Clifton, who is 40 and is now chief of the DeCordova/Acton VFD, life has become so hectic between working his Fort Worth job and running his company that he knows he will not be able to do both for too many more years.

“I’m definitely not in any hurry to leave the Fort Worth Fire Department,” he said. “I love my job. This is a great place to work, great people. I’m neck deep into the fire service, but one of these days I’m going to have to make that decision. It will be an economics-driven decision.”

For information go to www.fdtrainingsystems.com