Another fun video

a reply to: RadioRobert

The DC-10 ones are insane. It's wild watching them run those canyons.

Tanker 910 working the canyons around Tucson, posted on Facebook today.

a reply to: Zaphod58

^ We found the arsenal plane.

I reckon a few A-380's will pop up on the market in the next few months and make good air tankers. Imagine what you can do with up to 575 tonnes max takeoff weight? Now THAT would be an arsenal plane!

a reply to: thebozeian

I'd love to see one with a tank underneath. Wouldn't be economically feasible, but cool as hell.

Is that what normally happens...they have the king air or whatever marking the drop...? a reply to: RadioRobert

I think so.Its to show the drop pilot the wind direction and what the air is doing over the fire.

a reply to: Silentvulcan

Yes. The King Air is used as the equivalent of a Forward Air Controller, and directs the air attack on the fire.

a reply to: Silentvulcan
To second Zaph's reply, yes. The same system is used in Australia during our fire season as is in the US, albeit with variations on tactics and some equipment due to localized conditions. You have spotters and controllers who call in the drop aircraft and coordinate the runs. And in our case it tends to run through a central control centre prioritizing assets.

a reply to: Zaphod58
You wouldn't really need a belly tank with a fuse that large, and in any case the 380 doesn't have as much ground clearance as a 747. At high loads I have to stoop my head to pass under the centre fuse of a 380 by a fair bit in comparison to not at all with the 744. And for the record I'm 5' 11" to give you an idea. You could just use the advantage of 3 decks to haul water and retardant mix. Yes it would be expensive , but when you absolutely, positively had to stop a fire with a big load it would be impossible to beat. And the 380 has surprisingly good low speed and altitude handling characteristics.

a reply to: thebozeian

I was reading an article last night that was talking about current VLATs having something like 170,000 gallons that could drop over a mile. So I can definitely see the advantage if you could convert one. That would stop all activity during a fire when it started a drop. Heh. Watching one through the valleys around Tucson would be fun as hell.

originally posted by: Silentvulcan
Is that what normally happens...they have the king air or whatever marking the drop...? a reply to: RadioRobert

Yeah, the King Air fills two roles right now. Lead plane and/or Air Tactical or Air Attack.

Lead plane goes down low and roots around looking at terrain, trees, towers, power lines, etc to figure out the best and safest approaches to the target area. Then he talks the tanker in verbally,which( "You're going to see this on the left, this on the right, when you reach this or see that, drop") and then flies the route and marks the drop while the tanker follows, then peels out up and away to get out of the way. It's only been King Airs as lead planes, and now a few Super King Airs (B200).

Air Tactical is the coordinator for everyone. He has usually been loitering up top put of the way, and is the air traffic controller. He's talking to the guys on the ground and the guys in the air. He uses his eye in the sky to give heads up to guys on the ground, find unmapped trails or roads for engines and crews to use to get them close or get them out. He's also in charge of stacking up air traffic safely and assigning targets coordinating with everyone including the managers on the ground.

Increasingly, they are putting air tac guys with the lead planes which has both benefits and disadvantages. Previous to this, they'd use pretty much anything available to contract for air tac as long as it had endurance.

They are slowly getting B200's owned and more under contract with leasing companies which are a little faster and have much, much better endurance than the King Airs. So they are shifting tactics a bit and have a new acronym. But that^ has basically been the script for forty years or so.

Thanks Gent’s...I thought that’s what was going on...did they use to or still do use Broncos for this...a reply to: RadioRobert

a reply to: Silentvulcan

California did(does?) but not USFS

Between June 20 and 21st, Tanker 914 made 10 trips to the Central Fire, north of Phoenix, out of the Mesa-Gateway airport. On those 10 drops, they dropped over 93,000 gallons of retardant around the fire.

Thought so..I’m sure I had seen them on ADSB flying strange patterns...! RadioRobert

Tanker 914, a couple Bae-146s, and an MD-80 are currently working a fire about a mile from my brother's house in North Phoenix. He's getting quite the show.

originally posted by: RadioRobert
a reply to: Silentvulcan

California did(does?) but not USFS

CalFire does. It’s their lead in before moving to other assets.