The Missoulian has an interesting article about the state of the large air tanker fleet. It has at least a couple of errors, mis-identifying the air tanker in the photo (it is actually a P-3 Orion owned by Aero Union) and providing incorrect information about Evergreen’s 747 very large air tanker. But here is how the article begins:
Utah’s Oquirrh Mountains didn’t just claim one of Neptune Aviation’s iconic P2V slurry bombers late last month: The crash took out 5 percent of the nation’s firefighting heavy air force.
While no one is questioning the reliability of Neptune’s fleet of P2V bombers, even the Missoula company is wondering when a new plane will take its place.
Neptune’s Korean War-era submarine chasers make up half the U.S. Forest Service’s heavy air tanker fleet nationwide, and it’s lost two of them in the past eight months. There are just three companies with 19 certified heavy tankers available for the 2009 wildfire season.
“So far, we’ve been able to supply the demand at this current tempo,” Neptune safety officer Mike Pfau said of firefighting assignments. “But we know these planes can never be replaced. They don’t build these anymore. We want a solid idea before the 2013 contract expires of where we’re going with a modern platform. We don’t have a closet full of other aircraft that can fill in and substitute for the P2V.”
After Hawkins and Powers of Greybull, Wyo., suffered two catastrophic crashes of its C-130A slurry bombers in 2002, the Forest Service started an intensive review of both the tactical stress firefighting puts on aircraft and the structural history of the planes it had under contract. Neptune came through the process with a new maintenance standard for its planes and renewed faith from the Forest Service. In 2008, the Forest Service granted Neptune a five-year contract for use of its 11 P2Vs.
As of last Saturday, that number is down to nine. One crashed on takeoff in Reno, Nev., last Sept. 1, killing its crew of three. Tanker 42 crashed on a mountainside in cloudy conditions April 25, with three more fatalities. The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating both incidents, but has not issued any restraints or limitations on the rest of Neptune’s fleet.
Ironically, just five days before the crash of Tanker 42, members of Airtanker.org’s pilot community had started a thread pondering designs for a new air tanker. They noted such a plane might also be of interest to federal Homeland Security and National Guard air fleets, which also get involved in firefighting.
Such planes won’t be cheap. Unlike passenger or cargo planes, slurry bombers fly in horrific conditions, carrying heavy loads and dropping them in seconds, in all kinds of terrain and altitudes. The big market for such capabilities is the military, which explains why most slurry bombers are surplus military planes. The latest-generation military plane is the C-130J, which costs between $50 million and $60 million.
Twenty years ago, the Forest Service had 44 slurry bombers on contract, based by region. Now, its entire fleet of 19 planes is on national call. Any plane can be sent to any part of the country where the need is highest.
Thanks, Dick
