Helicopter Repair Facility Protected by Talentum Flame Detectors

Helicopter support company Heli-One has installed FFE’s Talentum flame detectors as part of a foam extinguishing system at its helicopter repair and overhaul facility in Rzeszow, Poland. The units were installed by Polish fire suppression company Gureco on behalf of UK distributor M D Fire Systems.

Installed in the main hangar, the flame detectors are designed to instantly detect any type of flame, not just hydrocarbon flames. This is extremely important in a facility such as this, where flames can potentially originate from many different sources – even metals.  

“FFE’s Talentum optical flame detectors are ideal for this type of application, comments Dr Daniel Waldron, product manager at FFE. “By utilising infra-red (IR) sensing technology, they detect flames within seconds and are resistant to any dust, steam or smoke present. Alternatively, with the addition of an ultraviolet (UV) sensor, the detector becomes immune to false signals such as sunlight.”

The way flame detectors work is straightforward: optical sensors receive the IR and/or UV radiation emitted by the flames and a processor analyses the optical sensor signal waveforms and determines if they represent flames and, if so, accepts them. If the signals do not match the internal algorithms for flames then they are considered to be false sources and rejected.

Talentum flame detectors are the only ones on the market capable of detecting 99% of all types of fires in a single unit.