Aerial deployment of water and fire retardant chemicals in fighting fires is known in the art. Typically, an aircraft either loads on the fly from a large body of water such as a lake or river, or is loaded on the ground via hoses from tanks. In both cases, the water and/or chemical retardant is not contained within any kind of vessel once it leaves the aircraft. In short, the water and/or chemical retardant is a generally uncontrollable free body once it leaves the aircraft.
As such, under current practices many factors limit the pilot's ability to hit their desired target. For example, in fire suppression, the pilot must release the cargo relatively close to the ground to prevent the water or chemical retardant from dissipating in the air before it reaches the fire, and thus losing its effectiveness. Further, as the pilots must fly relatively close to the ground, night flying for fire suppression is not permitted. Finally, the loose nature of the cargo when currently dropped affects the pilot's ability to control where the cargo hits within the drop zone. As such, precision drops to relatively small drop zones in not practical, such as dropping absorbent or petroleum devouring material on oil slicks is not feasible.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds