16 • THE CALIFORNIA FIRE SERVICE MAGAZINE • JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2024 feet in diameter at the top, and its unique design provides structurally ridged so that it will not come in contact with rotor blades but has flexibility that will allow it to be aimed depending on wind conditions. The chute design will also help to maintain the density of the foam and offset the effects of gravitational acceleration. The chute will deploy and retract during takeoff, landing, and refilling of the water tank in flight. The system and chute deployment and retraction system will be operated by a wireless remote system. A coming out party at CTEX Sukay has assembled a team of finance experts, scientists, and fire service professionals (including CSFA President Eddie Sell) as part of his management team and team of advisors. Together the management and consulting team has a combined 100 years of firefighting experience. The company has patents pending in the US for the system as well as international PCT patents for Australia, Canada, and the European Union with an eye toward marketing worldwide. At the California Training and Education Expo (CTEX) in Riverside, Feb. 27 and 28 the company will have a doublesized booth where they will be showcasing a 1/16 scale prototype of the SKHI-EX delivery system for CTEX attendees in the US as well as international PCT patents in Australia, Canada, and the European Union. The company is actively engaged in the financial world, lining up investors with the plan to build a full-scale prototype of the system by September of this year. Once Underwriters Laboratories and U.S. Forest Service approvals have been secured, which Sukay expects to happen later this year, the company will be able to sell the system as a suspended system below a helicopter. It is hoped that in 2025 the company will have Federal Aviation Administration approvals allowing the system to be sold as an attached configuration to helicopters. The initial system has been designed to pair with the Erikson Skycrane, How the SKHI-EX helicopter foam delivery system would be mounted on an Erickson Skycrane. “For 80 years it has basically been a constant improvement of what I call the bucket brigade…the only thing that has changed is the that the buckets have gotten larger...” Larry Sukay, CEO of Western States Fire, developer of the SKHI-EX.
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