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Air tanker update

Bill GabbertMay 25, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker10 Comments

Tanker 40 taxiing to takeoff to begin its fire season, May 25, 2012 — Tanker 40 taxiing before takeoff 5:55 p.m. MDT, May 25, 2012. As it left the Neptune hangar at Missoula, Neptune's P2V that is used for training pilots can be seen in the background. Tanker 40 returned to the hangar later in the evening.

Next Generation air tankers

The U.S. Forest Service, after saying earlier that they would make the announcement “by the end of April”, still has not made public any decisions about contracts for the next generation of air tankers. The contract solicitation closed February 15, 2012. These next-gen aircraft are supposed to carry (preferably) 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of retardant, shall be able to cruise at 300 knots, and will have turbine or jet engines. We have heard rumors about why the contracts have not been awarded, which we are attempting to confirm.

The inability of the U.S. Forest Service to make a decision about additional contracts is putting a serious dampener on many air tanker operators and their hopes of putting more aircraft in the air. These contractors can’t go to the bank and borrow millions of dollars to buy an aircraft by saying, “We think the USFS may give us a contract this year, or next year, or maybe the year after that; but really we have no friggin’ idea what the USFS is going to do. And if we do buy one, we don’t know if the Interagency Air Tanker Board will approve it. If we do get a contract, and if the aircraft is approved by the IATB, we don’t know exactly how many flying hours we will get paid for each year.” For some reason, bankers have little empathy for such an approach.

And some people wonder why the number of air tankers on contract has seen a 75% reduction over the last 10 years — from 44 in 2002 to the 10 or 11 (10.5 ?) we have today.

Air tanker list

On Friday there were 10 large air tankers on contract and active:

3 in Nevada
2 in New Mexico
1 in Arizona
2 in Colorado
2 in California

The last time we obtained the list of large air tankers that were on exclusive use contracts was April 19, 2012. Now as you can see below, there is an updated list, dated today, May 25. There are two notable changes: Tanker 40 (with “interim approval”) is added, and Tanker 10 dropped off.

It was Tanker 10 that had the 24-inch crack in a wing spar and skin, causing the FAA to issue an Emergency Airworthiness Directive in February. Dan Snyder, President of Neptune told Wildfire Today on Friday that they have decided to not repair the aircraft this year, but to put it in “ready” storage.

Air tanker contract list May 25, 2012. NICC.

Tanker 40

Neptune’s jet-powered air tanker, a BAe-146, will go on contract tomorrow, May 26 and will work through October 5. Tanker 40 is being brought on as “additional equipment” on their existing contract. As of Friday night, there was no Resource Order for the air tanker and it was sitting at Missoula. (UPDATE 11:20 a.m. MT, May 26: A flight plan for the aircraft was filed for it to depart Missoula at 11:00 a.m on May 26. en route to Alamagordo, New Mexico, for an estimated arrival at 1:55 p.m. MT. This would put it fairly close to the Whitewater-Baldy fire. It actually took off at 11:20 a.m. UPDATE again: before it arrived at Alamagordo, it was diverted to Albuquerque, New Mexico.)

Tanker 40 is still working under “interim” approval from the Interagency Air Tanker Board. At the end of this year it will be reevaluated and considered for full approval, based on how it performed while dropping retardant, and how it interfaced with ground crews at air tanker bases. During the winter some changes were made to the aircraft to improve its performance.

In a news release dated April 21, 2012, Neptune stated that by the beginning of the 2012 fire season they expected to take delivery of two more BAe-146 air tankers, and by 2021 they will acquire nine more, for a total of 11. These would replace the nine 50+ year old military surplus P2V air tankers they are currently operating.

Neptune has recently revamped their web site, and on it we found this statement today, indicating that they revised their air tanker acquisition schedule, most likely due to the U.S. Forest Service’s dithering about the next gen contracts.

By the end of summer 2012, we will have 3 BAe-146 large airtankers. By 2016, there will be 11 modern, large airtankers. This fleet will have the capability of being dispatched to customers worldwide.

“Worldwide”. Hmmm. Which makes me think, would I want to fly a P2V to Greece? Or Australia? Thanks, but, NO! I would be surprised if anyone would, especially after several of them have been forced to make emergency landings in the last few months at Missoula and Prescott with dead engines, or landing gear that had to be manually lowered, giving airport firefighters something to do by escorting the air tankers down the runways as they landed. So these new air tankers may give Neptune Aviation a capability they previously didn’t have. Who knows… maybe some of them will end up down under during the northern hemisphere’s winter.

Minden also has two P2Vs, and is converting a BAe-146 into an air tanker — a project that has been going on for well over a year.

minden-bae-146-in-hangar — Minden's BAe-146 during the conversion process. Photo: Minden, used with permission

DC-10 air tanker demonstration at air show

Bill GabbertMay 23, 2012May 23, 2012Uncategorizedair tanker

One of the DC-10 air tankers made a demonstration water drop at the air show at March Field in California last weekend.

CAL FIRE seeks agreement to use Channel Island National Guard base to reload air tankers

Bill GabbertMay 7, 2012September 30, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, MAFFS3 Comments

Channel Island MAFFS C-130 2012 — A C-130J MAFFS from the 146th Airlift Wing during recertification, March 7, 2012. Photo by Senior Airman Nic Carzis.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) is negotiating an agreement with the California Air National Guard to enable Channel Island National Guard base (map) in Ventura County near Oxnard to be used as a reload base for air tankers working on wildfires. For years the base, the home of the 146th Airlift Wing, has been capable of reloading two C-130s stationed at the base outfitted with Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) which can be slipped into the cargo hold enabling them to drop 3,000 gallons of fire retardant on fires, but other state or federal air tankers have not been allowed to use the base. John Winder, the CAL FIRE Assistant Deputy Director of Fire Protection Operations, told Wildfire Today that the goal of the agreement is for any military, state, or federal air tanker to be able to use the base for reloading. The U.S. Forest Service would also have to approve the use of the base before their contracted air tankers could use it since the federal agency has different requirements for reload bases than CAL FIRE.

The reload facility would be call-when-needed, most likely operated by CAL FIRE personnel who could have it up and running a few hours after being notified.

According to Mr. Winder, the Channel Islands base is one of only six locations in California where MAFFS air tankers can reload, with the others being Chico, Fresno, San Bernardino, Victorville, and Paso Robles. Not every base has runways, taxiways, and ramps that are capable of handling an aircraft the size and weight of a C-130.

The California Air National Guard C-130s can be activated for use on wildfires within the state fairly easily with approval from the Governor. To be used outside the state requires a more complex federal-level approval governed by an agreement specifying that the aircraft be able to respond within 48 hours, but they usually are mobilized within 36 hours. Both the state and federal approvals require some level of previous commitment of standard non-military air tankers on going fires.
Thanks go out to Johnny

Manitoba adds 4 air tankers to their fleet

Bill GabbertMay 5, 2012September 30, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, CL-415, Manitoba5 Comments

The Canadian province of Manitoba is adding four new scooper air tankers to their fleet. The Bombardier CL-415 tankers can carry about 1,620 gallons of water and cruises at 207 mph. According to the Canadians, a typical mission for a CL-415 on a large fire in Manitoba would last four hours and includes 80 drops, totaling 129,000 gallons.

During an announcement about the new aircraft, Water Stewardship Minister Gord Mackintosh said:

With the new planes they are faster, the carry more water, and they drop double the number of bombs in an hour, in other words, they drop about 20 water bombs in an hour versus 12 with the old planes.

Gotta love the repeated references to the “bombs”.

The “old planes” Minister Mackintosh is referring to are the older CL-215s, which according to an article at the Winnipeg Free Press can make 12 drops per hour, flies at 160 mph, carries 1,412 gallons, totaling 67,776 gallons on a typical 4-hour mission.

For comparison, the large air tankers working the Fourmile Canyon fire west of Boulder, Colorado in September, 2010, where the retardant reload base was unusually close — 15 miles away — were dropping approximately 4,000 gallons per hour. The U.S. Forest Service’s fleet of 10 air tankers does not have any water scoopers or CL-215/415s on exclusive use contracts. The Department of Interior has had two for the last few years. The USFS currently has a Request for Proposal out for scooper air tankers, and may contract for some later this year. While water sources in the United States may not be as prolific as in much of Canada, it’s hard to continue to ignore an air tanker option that can deliver 32 times the number of gallons per hour onto a fire (4,000 vs. 32,000 gallons), comparing the best case scenarios for both scoopers and conventional large air tankers, such as a P2-V.

Secretary Salazar says prescribed fires can be conducted safely

Bill GabbertApril 27, 2012April 28, 2012Uncategorizedair tanker, escaped prescribed fire, prescribed fire1 Comment

Secretary of Interior Ken Salazar on Thursday said prescribed fires can be conducted safely because there is a “very careful, meticulous process” for planning each project. The Secretary was responding to a question during a media conference call about a letter that Colorado Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet sent to the heads of the U.S. Forest Service, the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, and the Fish and Wildlife Service. The senators asked the agencies to review their prescribed fire procedures in light of the fatal Lower North Fork escaped prescribed fire on state land in Colorado. The Secretary said:

Both the Forest Service and the BLM and the Interior agencies have a very careful, meticulous process for determining whether a prescribed fire should be ignited. And we as a whole of the federal government feel very confident that if the process is followed we will be able to achieve a successful prescribed fire and thereby reduce hazardous fuel accumulation to make communities safer from the effects of a wildfire. So our history has shown that with all the prescribed fires that we do have around the country that we can do it in fact safely. So we will be responding to both Senator Udall and Senator Bennett because I think they are correct in terms of raising the issue just to make sure that we have all the appropriate protocols in place so that we can do prescribed fire burning safely.

In addition to Secretary Salazar, other federal officials on the conference call to discuss wildfire preparedness included Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture; Craig Fugate, FEMA Administrator; Tom Tidwell, Forest Service Chief; and Ed Delgado, National Interagency Fire Center.

In response to a question about the diminished fleet of air tankers, Chief Tidwell said there could be up to three more large air tankers brought on this year and as many as ten more next year.

We’ll bring on probably another three [large air tankers] this year through additional contracts along with one very large air tanker that we also have on contract and then this year we will continue to rely on the Air National Guard and the Air Force Reserve to provide up to eight of their C-130s. We can slip in a retardant system into those aircraft and within a few hours have another eight aircraft that can respond to fires…So that’s what we have for this year. Next year we plan to probably bring on maybe up to another 10 additional large air tankers through this request for proposals to be able to augment our current fleet.

Actually, the interagency agreement requires that Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) C-130s be operational within 48 hours. However, MAFFS aircraft have routinely responded within 36 hours of the initial request.

The Secretaries of Interior and Agriculture issued a news release on Thursday about the 2012 wildfire season.

Colorado MAFFS crews train for fire season

Bill GabbertApril 25, 2012January 23, 2013Uncategorizedair tanker, MAFFS

Earlier this year the crews that fly the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) air tankers based in California and Wyoming conducted their annual training to be sure they are prepared to drop fire retardant on wildfires if all of the privately operated air tankers are committed. This week the Air Force Reserve unit at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs did the same, dropping water on the Base and in the Pike National Forest. In addition to the two C-130 MAFFS units in Colorado, three other bases in the United States have two aircraft each that are designated as MAFFS-deployable, stationed in California, Wyoming, and South Carolina.

Below are some photos that we received today of the Wyoming Air National Guard MAFFS crews that were taken during their training at Cheyenne and Camp Guernsey last week.

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