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.