Cal Fire and the U. S. Forest Service are finalizing their contracts for very large air tankers for this year. Here is what we have been told by the two agencies.
DC-10 drops retardant during a test last week near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Photo: Bushfire Co-operative Research Centre.
Cal Fire will have one on an exclusive use contract, and one on a call when needed (CWN) contract. The USFS will have one on a CWN contract. One of these DC-10’s is currently on a contract in Australia, but it should be ending soon. It has only been used on one fire so far this Australian summer.
At this time neither Cal Fire nor the USFS have any plans to contract for this aircraft this year. Last year the USFS had it on an exclusive use contract for 2-3 months, stationed at Lake Elsinore in southern California.
Air Attack 330, an OV-10A, at Ramona, California, operated by Cal Fire. Photo: Cal Fire
I like this photo that was provided by Cal Fire in San Diego. It shows Air Attack 330 flying very low and dispensing smoke as if it were designating a target for a following air tanker. Either that, or he has a serious engine problem.
Cal Fire began acquiring OV-10A’s, or Broncos, in 1993 to replace their Cessna OV-2 Skymasters. The OV-10A’s can serve double-duty as both a platform for the Air Tactical Group Supervisor and as a Lead Plane.
Cessna Skymaster, OV-2
I flew in a Skymaster once, as a passenger from Santa Barbara to San Diego. The aircraft has two engines–one in the front and one in the rear–in a push/pull configuration.
I was working on a fire and had been flown from San Diego to Santa Barbara and needed a ride home after being released. The pilot walked right out of the pilot’s lounge and got directly into the aircraft. He didn’t bother with any pre-flight checks. Giving him the benefit of the doubt, he may have done that earlier in the day.
Flying from Santa Barbara to San Diego in a straight line takes you over the Pacific Ocean. Not long after we reached our cruising altitude over the ocean the sound from the engines decreased suddenly and I realized that the rear engine had stopped. I saw some of the gauges on the instrument panel go down to zero.
The pilot said not to worry, that the Skymaster can sustain level flight on just one engine. But the altimeter I had my eyes glued to was showing that we were descending. As the pilot kept saying not to worry, he began turning to the left toward land, he was trying to restart the engine, and was looking through a Jeppesen Flight Guide for the closest airport. He was a busy guy as I sat there wondering if we could make it to a runway somewhere, anywhere. I was checking the altimeter every 1.5 seconds. It kept going down.
Finally the pilot got the rear engine started again, and we continued our merry way to San Diego. This time over land. We arrived safely at Gillespe Field where I kissed the ground after I got out of that damn Skymaster.
According to @CalFireSanDiego the photo above shows a new paint job for CalFire’s air tankers.
Here is a link to a YouTube video from a year ago that describes the winter maintenance of their air tankers. The screen grab below is from that video, showing the older paint job. The differences appear to be very subtle. Maybe they are referring to just a single aircraft being painted, rather than a new design… other than the “CAL FIRE” below the side window.
The description of this video calls it a “test drop on March 3, 2010”, but Tanker 911 appears to be dropping near a fire. It happened in the Enfield State Forest, near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. It may be described as a test drop, because the use of the aircraft during their current summer fire season is considered a “trial” to determine how effective it would be down under.
I can’t get used to hearing jet engines while an air tanker is dropping.
And speaking of fire videos, here is a link to a YouTube slide show of “vegitation fire” photos. The pics are pretty good; the music is loud and annoying.
Earlier today we told you that the Martin Mars air tanker would do a demonstration drop in Coal Harbor in Vancouver. Well, here’s the video proof. I had no idea it would be flying right next to skyscrapers. Turn up the SOUND so you can hear those big radial engines!
An EXCELLENT video!
This was part of Forestry Day in downtown Vancouver. In addition to the Martin Mars, a Convair air tanker and a Bell 212 helicopter also participated.
Forests Minister Pat Bell was quoted as saying:
(British Columbia has) the largest forest industry anywhere in the world, and the demonstration of our air tanker fleet, I think, just shows what capacity we really have. It was impressive to see the amount of water coming down.
Ok, that’s enough airtankerporn for one day.
UPDATE Feb. 24, 2010
Since you insist, here’s another video of the Martin Mars scooping, dropping, and then mooring on the same day, Feb. 23, in the Fraser River at Steveston, just south of Vancouver. It did another demonstration at Steveston today.
Here are a couple of photos taken by Tony Walsh at the Steveston demo yesterday.
The Martin Mars, very large air tanker, will be making a demonstration drop at the Olympics today. At 1 p.m. it will fly over the city of Vancouver and drop up to 7,200 gallons of water over Coal Harbour near the Olympic rings. That harbor and its sea plane base is what you see in the background occasionally when Brian Williams and other NBC commentators are broadcasting from the Olympics. The best viewing area will be Harbour Green Park, at the foot of Bute Street downtown.
I am not certain what an air tanker has to do with the Olympics, but it should be fun to watch regardless. It is unlikely that NBC will include the demonstration in their Olympic coverage, but I could be wrong, because Brian Williams is an aviation buff. The other day he and another talking head were commenting on a sea plane that was taking off during their broadcast, and Williams said it was a Twin Otter.
Here is some airtankerporn, a file photo of the Martin Mars taken by Steve Bosch of the Vancouver Sun. It is one of the best photos of the aircraft I have seen.
Here is a video of the Martin Mars at Vancouver on January 16 in 2009. It was doing a demonstration during a loggers convention, perhaps a dry wet run for the Olympics demonstration. Turn up the sound if you play it. There’s nothing like the sound of those 4 huge radial engines. At least I think they are radials.
UPDATE: Feb. 24, 2010
We posted a great video of the Martin Mars dodging skyscrapers and dropping a load of water in Vancouver on February 23, 2010.
