aerial firefighter

At Fort Wainwright, the Alaska Fire Service and the BLM have a Martin 404 tanker, two Canadair CL-415T amphib tankers, and four Airtractor AT-802 Fire Bosses on floats ready for a fire, but this season has been very light with having a lot of rain.

I was refering to all of those airliners but a formation of buffs attacking a forest fire like an arc light mission would very effectly do the job.

Thought you might have been referring to the military stuff at D/M. 

A BUFF might be a decent one if they could figure out a way to do cluster bombs in retardant........Imagine a 3 plane cell over the front fire line......

I did not know that,thanks for the info.

Ah Seastallion !

 You are not aware of the situation with these Stored planes . Many are airline owned and sent there when they fly from the factory . It's an economics thing . Buy part of a new fleet and draw on it after Crashes or Recalls . Otherwise don't use it unless it can make a profit.

    Point ; The airframe might be say ten years old , But has not been subjected to the rotations a fully operational one is . Time on the birds are measured in Rotations ( Take-Offs and Landings)    T.B. 

i agree,it's a shame that all of those a/c in the bone yard in AZ. can't be utilized as tankers.

I have been here in Oz for over 12 years now and yet have tried to figure out why on earth they don't have their own fleet of tankers on the ready like the US does as they have just as bad if not worse a fire danger as SoCal!! YEARLY as well!! They spend countless millions on contracts that could be spent locally on indiginous resources to do this. Over the years since Black Saturday they have hired tankers from the US and Cananda. Last season the C-130s and Bae146 earned their pay!! I tracked them on FlightRadar App fighting fires in South Australia and Tasmania. I know it gives the normally Off season work but, there is a retired 747-300 sitting at Avalon airport that could be made airworthy in that respect, but no, it was given a paint job and now sits at the same airport for advertising where not many can see it!!?? Waisted resource for out of work aviation mechanics that could give back to the country!! Ohhhh sorry, common sense and logic will not be tolerated! Some people wonder why the past arcraft were used as tankers and lasted so long doing so. It's the age old thing, they don't build them like they used too. However metal does have a lifespan and new airframes need to be utilised. unfortunately to the radial tuned ears, that means turboprops or jets. That does mean older types of those however. A B-52 would be able to carry enough retardant to cover a state wide swath, but is ill designed to do it. C-5??? Well, you get the picture....

Here too and P-3s,C-54s,P-2s

Down here Cal Fire flies S-2 prop jets

I've seen those up here in northern cal but not the 747 yet.could you imagine an A380 being a water bomber some day.

These have been on the news around here quite a bit lately with some of the local wildfires...

The airline I fly for parks next to the DC-10 BAE-146; pretty impressive seeing them. The flaps and aft of the bottom of the fuselage are covered in the retardent.

Here are a couple of Erickson's in Madras, OR.  The CH54 was from last August and the other one is from March, 2016.  Two of those on the ramp then.  The MD80/DC9 ?? was from a year and a half ago and they are still there, about 2-3 of them with engines off right now.  The last pic was actually taken of their P-51 on it's way out to a memorial flight.

artworks2

 

 

lewbud

 

jelliott523

I've seen the DC-10's that are converted into tankers, they've been here in Boise a few times. I"ve also seen the Bae-146's and there is an MD-83 tanker as well. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise often has them parked on the ramp.

Here's a pic of the 747-400:

Areoflite based in Spokane tells me it's a call to call but 2 hours to refeul and take off to the GPS Lat/Long I do carve the Bae 146 tanker  along with others...

 

 

 

I wonder what the turnaround time on that bigboy is?

 

 

 

 

 

Are you still working up there now that LFN has taken over?

lewbud

 

jelliott523

I've seen the DC-10's that are converted into tankers, they've been here in Boise a few times. I"ve also seen the Bae-146's and there is an MD-83 tanker as well. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise often has them parked on the ramp.

Here's a pic of the 747-400:

Areoflite based in Spokane tells me it's a call to call but 2 hours to refeul and take off to the GPS Lat/Long I do carve the Bae 146 tanker  along with others...

 

 

 

I wonder what the turnaround time on that bigboy is?

 

jelliott523

I've seen the DC-10's that are converted into tankers, they've been here in Boise a few times. I"ve also seen the Bae-146's and there is an MD-83 tanker as well. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise often has them parked on the ramp.

Here's a pic of the 747-400:

 

I wonder what the turnaround time on that bigboy is?

I've seen the DC-10's that are converted into tankers, they've been here in Boise a few times. I"ve also seen the Bae-146's and there is an MD-83 tanker as well. The National Interagency Fire Center in Boise often has them parked on the ramp.

Here's a pic of the 747-400:

Sure could use a couple of these up at Fort McMurray, Alberta.  A city of 88,000 has been on fire for three days now.

IIRC there are a couple of DC-10's converted as well.  I think Erickson is planning on some smaller jet conversions as well, as he has a couple over at the base of operations.

I live in northern cal. a cal fire air base is not very far away from any fire and it is the largest tanker so far.

I didn't know a 747-4 was in use for fire duties, Evergreen has at least one 747 converted, but it's an old generic. There are so many retired 400's parked in storage in the desert, or awaiting being parted out and scrapped. It's inevitable that someone will be making a tanker out of one, if they turn out to be viable fire fighting tools.

Sure could drop a lot of retardent at one time, but the loads could be an hour or more apart, depending on how far the staging area might be from the fire.