Tech | October 20, 2010 | 54 comments

Old Military Planes to Drop 900,000 Tree-Bombs a Day

source: http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/old-military-planes-drop-900000-tree-bombs-day.php

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bundlebear
I've always felt that planting trees was simply too much of a non-violent affair. Digging holes, lowering in saplings, filling them with soil -- yawn. Where's the action, the excitement, the military-grade aircraft? It's also time consuming. Granted, I don't have nearly the skills this guy does, but the last time I went out planting trees, the best I could do was one every few minutes. Thankfully, somebody has figured know how to plant trees right: By enlisting a fleet of a retrofitted C-130 military transport planes to literally aerial bomb forests with new trees, we could plant 900,000 of them in a single day.

Planes once used to drop landmines retrofitted to drop tree-mines
See, it turns out that there are all these military planes just idling in hangars across the world -- they were designed to drop landmines en masse in enemy territory, but now they're just collecting rust. There are some 2,500 of these planes in 70 different countries, and it turns out they make for ideal tree-bombers.

The Guardian explains:

Equipment installed in the huge C-130 transport aircraft used by the military for laying carpets of landmines across combat zones has been adapted to deposit the trees in remote areas including parts of Scotland.
An idea, originally from a former RAF pilot, Jack Walters, of Bridgnorth, Shropshire, has been developed by the US manufacturer Lockheed Martin Aerospace so that 900,000 young trees can be planted in a day.

Walters' idea was published in a scientific paper nearly 25 years ago, but was deemed technologically infeasible at the time. Now, Lockheed seems to have determined the plan to be an ideal way to breathe new life into outmoded military machines. Peter Simmons, a company rep, is enthused about the idea.
"The possibilities are amazing," he gushes to the Guardian. "We can fly at 1,000ft at 130 knots planting more than 3,000 cones a minute in a pattern across the landscape - just as we did with landmines, but in this case each cone contains a sapling. That's 125,000 trees for each sortie and 900,000 trees in a day."

Lockheed claims that deployment of this technology will allow the planting of 1 billion trees a year, or enough to reforest -- or simply forest -- 3,000 square miles. They plan on marketing the plane to companies seeking to offset their carbon footprints.

How Tree-Bombing Works
First, you have to pick the proper environment: Typically, an area that has experienced deforestation, and was previously home to forests. With minor adjustments, however, Lockheed says that traditionally unforested areas can be successfully planted with shrub versions of the tree bombs. Shrub-bombs.

Second, you outfit a landmine carpet bomber to drop tree-bombs instead. Finally, you have the tree-bomb itself. Here's how they work:

The tree cones are pointed and designed to bury themselves in the ground at the same depth as if they had been planted by hand. They contain fertilizer and a material that soaks up surrounding moisture, watering the roots of the tree. The containers are metal but rot immediately so the tree can put its roots into the soil.
And thus you have a suitably testosterone-fueled, 21st century-appropriate method of planting trees.


http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/10/old-military-planes-drop-900000-tree-bom...
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54 comments // Old Military Planes to Drop 900,000 Tree-Bombs a Day

  • GISchmo
    • 0
      GISchmo  

    • Wonderful idea. If man weren't too busy fighting each other, we could be accomplishing amazing feats like this, all the time!

    • 1 year ago
  • kangarooman
  • treewolf39
    • 0
      treewolf39  

    • Fail. I have planted around a million trees and I have thinned millions. They used to seed from planes but found the trees get planted to close together and create much more work to get a proper plantation up and running.

      Pay the humans to plant. Pay a fair wage. For myself I know that the years I spent treeplanting pushed my body to a new level of fitness and health. Carrying the weight is a bit hard on the hips but other then that it is a wonderfully hard experience.

      I would like to know how you drop a tree from the sky and get it to bury itself to a proper depth and not have air pockets around the roots. There are some places where you can throw a tree on the ground and it will root, but most places require a lot more effort to ensure survival.

    • 1 year ago
  • norml37
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • norml37:

      As a spokesman for the crabgrass and kudzu delegation I must say No to the hemp only delegate. We are open to compromise with our fellow delegate on the other side of the aisle and believe there can be a peaceful resolution to the "hemp war".

    • 1 year ago
  • CCorsair
    • +1
      CCorsair  

    • it can't work on the fact seedling need care and the lands that need to be reforest are in very bad shape. Bombing them with seeds would be good but more need to be done. Plus one of the main nurseries that supplied young tree for replanting after fires and clear cutting has closed due to it was not paid by the state to cover bills they shut down and sold off everything and this was the No.1 place that put seed and seedlings in the grown in the US. what has to happen is re-thinking we clear woods and a stopping of mass burn off in protected areas for gain of money ..

    • 1 year ago
  • s_peak
    • +2
      s_peak  

    • Yeah I read about this years ago. I'm not sure that it ever actually happened. It's just an idea... the military would NEVER let us use some of it's equipment for a benevolent purpose. Has our government EVER done anything of this nature in their history? No... and I'm pretty sure they won't start now, even if a company commissions to do it for them.

    • 1 year ago
  • Osgiliath
    • 0
      Osgiliath  
    • s_peak:

      You have such a skewed vision of the world, of course they would let old planes be retrofitted if there is money in it. Things don't happen because of benevolence or malevolence like you think - they happen because of money.

    • 1 year ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • +1
      Gravity_Man  
    • s_peak:

      Well Peak old buddy old pal, the nation's trees have been afflicted for years with some bugs that bore in deep so maybe they decided they needed to let the bugs over-infest then die out => self-depopulate. Kind of the same logic they seem to be applying to human over-infestation.

      logic they seem to be applying to human over-infestation.
      logic they seem to be applying to human over-infestation.
      logic they seem to be applying to human over-infestation.

    • 1 year ago
  • littlwarrior
  • Nephwrack
  • Mr_Plick
  • JanforGore
  • floydyboy
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Mr_Plick:

      Thanks for coning that out. Since everybody knows the military can't fight against US SOIL it must've gotten tied up in committee. Or, PETA could have gotten in the way and got beaned in the head. Perhaps some relative of the snail darters then, they got beaned.

      My money says somebody got beaned and the idea got canned with Charlie Tuna.

    • 1 year ago
  • simonpc123
  • notsure
  • danitassin
  • ras_menelik
  • fun_size
  • VoyagerFilms
  • markckett3
    • +1
      markckett3  

    • Its innovative ideas like this that will help our planet combat mass deforestation. I like the idea of decommissioned military planes planing new vegetation rather than blowing it up.

    • 1 year ago
  • ozoneocean
    • 0
      ozoneocean  
    • markckett3:

      No it won't. this will do nothing, It's just a way to exploit government tax credits and give some wealthy companies some cheap, quick enviro cred, all while earning a very tasty little profit in new niche market.
      ...Meanwhile burning a massive amount of fossil fuel in the process!

      If they hired a few people to actually plant the trees by hand it'd be way better because:
      1. It's giving people work.
      2. They're not burning any extra carbon needlessly. Unlike the plane they are carbon neutral.
      3. You can be much surer that ALL the trees WILL actually be planted and not spewed over rock-faces and dumped in creeks etc.

    • 1 year ago
  • ras_menelik
    • +2
      ras_menelik  
    • ozoneocean:

      surly converting bombers from bombing 3,000 sq ml of humans a year to planting 3,000 sq ml a year is going to change something and thats just old C-130s wait till the B-52s and Antonovs join this war it will all be over faster than it started

    • 1 year ago
  • MrMxyzptlk
  • s_peak
    • +1
      s_peak  
    • MrMxyzptlk:

      I'll be satisfied when our air and water is no longer toxic. I don't feel like that's too much to ask... seeing as my tax dollars have paid for the rest of the deprogression and war that is taking place in this country and abroad. You he's never satisfied... but really... he just doesn't want to live in (and maybe raise children) in a radiated, toxified, dump of a country... and neither do I.

      GREED is never satisfied.

    • 1 year ago
  • ozoneocean
    • +2
      ozoneocean  
    • MrMxyzptlk:

      Why would I care if a big company donated money to a politician? What a nonsense thing to write.

      What I said still stands- the pane idea is just a way to make money out of climate change without actually doing much about it. -faking it isn't the same as making it.

    • 1 year ago
  • NiceN
    • 0
      NiceN  

    • Sweet, and the C-130 drops the bags in angel patterns, just like the flares; so that the gods may notice.

    • 1 year ago
  • good_stuff
    • 0
      good_stuff  

    • Very neat idea, although I don't understand why they need to plant samplings. It would seem to me that dropping seeds would be much more cost effective and probably end up with similar end results (i.e. dropping sapling on a rock means it won't get planted, but a seed could bounce off of the rock and may end up sprouting).

    • 1 year ago
  • sanzen3
  • floydyboy
    • 0
      floydyboy  

    • A show called Project Earth on the Discovery channel showed that this works a few yrs back. I'd put up a link to it but my stupid phone won't let me right now.

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
  • ozoneocean
    • +1
      ozoneocean  

    • I thought this was a little strange from Boeing of all people... then I saw the angle: "They plan on marketing the plane to companies seeking to offset their carbon footprints"
      Yeah... Marketing.

      Why not blast the cones out of cannons? There're a few old battleships lying around rotting in quiet docks... those big 16 inch guns just going to waste...
      Good way to get some money out of those "companies seeking to offset their carbon footprints" so they can go on and keep polluting as if nothing happened and we can all keep relying on deep drilling oil rigs to power our economies and then cry and cry and blame some oil company when there's an inevitable environmental disaster.

      I really wonder just how many of the 900,000 dropped "tree bombs" will actually ever turn into trees.

      My guess is about 10% to 15% max... Being wildly over optimistic probably.

    • 1 year ago
  • Dazedandconfused
  • CalgarC
  • NickerBocker09
  • remanns
  • the1foreman
  • DogBoy
    • 0
      DogBoy  
    • the1foreman:

      The tree cones are pointed and designed to bury themselves in the ground at the same depth as if they had been planted by hand. They contain fertilizer and a material that soaks up surrounding moisture, watering the roots of the tree. The containers are metal but rot immediately so the tree can put its roots into the soil.
      They are hybrid cones I'll bet. Genetically altered.

    • 1 year ago
  • the1foreman
    • +1
      the1foreman  
    • DogBoy:

      I understand how it works after it lands, I'm talking about the landing itself. I'm guessing that a sapling with a cone bottom would meet little wind resistance. Being dropped from 1,000ft wouldn't be enough room to reach terminal velocity, but it would probably be traveling close to 200mph. A dead-stop landing from that speed is close to 1000 G's... all I'm asking is would a sapling really be able to survive that impact?

    • 1 year ago
  • DogBoy
    • 0
      DogBoy  
    • the1foreman:

      Perhaps we should call Lock Heed Martin and ask them to verify their math. (kidding)
      From the Company that put Columbine Colorado on the map. Them and Matt Stone.

    • 1 year ago
  • treewolf39
  • XasthurNortt
  • bailey78
  • onemalefla
  • fun_size
  • remanns
  • remanns
  • onemalefla
  • bailey78
  • Mark701
  • floydyboy
  • MrMxyzptlk
  • floydyboy
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