Lockheed Dragon Wagon

I was Chief Test Engineer on this beast. Fun! Supervised the mechanics and junior engineers on the test and regulation compliance for meeting Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards for this vehicle. Also did the design for the Fire truck build up pictured. Yes that is a backfire torch off the side. A fire breathing Dragon Wagon.

Although it's not visible in this picture, the truck is also spraying a retardant mixture to keep the backfire from spreading back toward the picture view point. All of this functionality was remote controlled from a console in the truck cab. On this fire in Nevada, the truck put down 40 miles of fire line without a jump over on any of it. The fire bosses released two helicopters at $2,000 per hour, and five ground crews when the Dragon Wagon showed up on the job. That's cost effective! The last time I checked, this truck is still being used by the Winemucca, Nevada Bureau of Land Management facility.

The truck design was licensed to Oshkosh, and some military vehicles still show the Dragon Wagon heritage.