Air Tanker 910, a DC-10, was photographed June 30, 2021 at Medford Airport in Oregon by Tim Crippin.Funding has been secured to upgrade the air tanker base at Albuquerque, New Mexico so that it can reload Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT).
US Senator Martin Heinrich announced that $15 million is now available to make improvements so that the airport will no longer be restricted to handling only Large Air Tankers which carry a maximum of 4,000 gallons of fire retardant. VLATS such as the DC-10 can hold 9,400 gallons, while the 747 has a capacity of about 18,000 gallons.
The changes will include replacing the concrete near the pits so that it can handle the weight of VLATs.
The headquarters of 10 Tanker is at the Albuquerque airport. They operate DC-10s but they can’t reload there unless a temporary retardant base is set up on the other side of the airport.
The base has been very busy this year and has often had four Large Air Tankers parked there overnight.
7 Comments
Probably a much more hospitable base than the Death Star ATB (COS) 80 miles to the north.
What wrong with C Springs
It feels like you’re hanging out in an ER waiting room. The ATBM isn’t exactly nice or accommodating and it is just a generally unwelcoming place for flight crews. The air attacks and asm’s won’t even touch the place, they just go to Cutter Air. The FS folks call it the Death Star and I can see why.
I’m pretty sure you meant 280 miles north or just about an hour of flight time one way.
I’ve seen an air attack platform there for the past week. I heard until the base was finished, about 2 weeks ago, aerial supervision was asked to stage at the FBOs for their convenience. Not sure what the ER reference is but it leads me to believe you haven’t been inside the building or to a hospital lately.
But I guess everyone has their own opinion.
I see cars parked in front of the std clinic all the time too, pretty sure they don’t want to be there.
So the main runway(s) can handle the weight but the ATB pits can’t? Is that what I am reading here?
Maybe concrete vs asphalt
Maybe thickness of runway vs thickness at the pits
Maybe a little read on the every 56 day FAA pub called A/FD showing limiting weights of main landing gear weights at various airports across the country
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