AIRFIELD FIRE MARKS

e now come to the Mark 9, probably the most recognised RAF Fire Crash Tender of them all and certainly a very successful design. This big Thornycroft Nubian Major six-wheel drive ten-ton chassis was developed by, what had then become known as, Transport Equipment (Thornycroft)Ltd, solely as a fire crash tender and carried bodywork by Hestair Dennis, coming onto front-line service around 1975/6. Although the name of Dennis was already synonymous with fire-fighting appliances, their original market was for civil brigade machines and not airfield crash tenders, but the consensus is that they made an exceptionally good job of it. It is believed that an order for 78 was contracted to the RAF, with a side order to the Royal Navy with some transferrals returning to the RAF in later years; 89 has been suggested as the size of the production run. These were the