Air Tanker 164
Continue readingI supersized it
I’m not sure why I have not done this before.
I have a lot of photo prints on my walls. Like other firefighters or former firefighters (is anyone ever a former firefighter?) many of them were taken at fires.
In deciding what to do with that empty space which was about six feet wide, I considered hanging two or more conventional-sized photos, 16″ x 20″ or smaller. Then I thought, why not go big — one megaphoto that would fill most of the space.
So I ordered a 48″ x 32″ canvas print of a photo I took at the Crow Peak Fire on June 27, 2016 of air tanker 161 dropping. I love seeing it on the wall.
(By the way, that photo won third place in the Professional category in the 13th annual Dahl Mountain Photo Competition in Rapid City. There were 215 entries.)
North American air tankers return from Australia
Four large air tankers have completed their assignments
Continue readingCameras on RJ85 films retardant drops in Victoria, Australia
This RJ85 air tanker apparently had front and rear-facing video cameras recording three retardant drops on a bushfire near Caledonia, Victoria.
Hit’em while they are small.
Air tankers at Rapid City
An MD-87 and an RJ85 were at Rapid City for the Legion Lake Fire in the Black Hills
Continue readingRJ85 on the Edwards Fire
An RJ85 drops on the Edwards Fire in Alameda County, California, September 26, 2017. Photo by Joel V.Joel sent us this photo of an RJ85 dropping on the Edwards Fire near Oakland, California. Thanks Joel.
As a bonus, here’s a video of an MD-87 dropping on the same fire, shot by Darryl Poe.
Thanks for the support @CAL_FIRE video credit: Darryl Poe. #oakland #fire pic.twitter.com/32x2XnoSRH
— Oakland Firefighters (@OaklandFireLive) September 27, 2017
The fire burned about 22 acres near Edwards Avenue and Mountain Blvd, six miles southeast of Oakland.
Two Aero-Flite scoopers began contracts this week
Two of Aero-Flite’s CL-415 scoopers, Tankers 260 and 263, began the Mandatory Availability Period on their exclusive use contracts on Monday. The company is hoping their other CL-415’s, Tankers 261 and 262, will be awarded call when needed contracts on the scooper solicitation that closed in March.
Four CL-415 water-scooping air tankers at Cody, Wyoming during the week of August 1, 2016. Photo by Becky Lester Hawkins.Aero-Flite also has two RJ85’s actively working on contracts and two others begin in the third week of May. They have one or two others available as call when needed depending on maintenance status.
Aero-Flite’s Tanker 161, an RJ85, at McClellan, March 23, 2016. Photo by Bill Gabbert.Tanker 391’s missions during the Australian summer
While Conair’s Tanker 391, an RJ85, was in Australia during their 2016-2017 summer, it delivered more than 450,000 liters (119,000 gallons) of retardant, foam and gel onto fires in Victoria and New South Wales for Vic Emergency, Forest Fire Management Victoria, CFA (Country Fire Authority), NSW Rural Fire Service, and other agencies. The aircraft has now returned to Canada.
(Above Graphic by RJ85 Australia)
The photo below won 3rd prize in the Professional category in the 12th Annual Dahl Mountain Photo Competition in Rapid City in which there were 215 entries. The photo shows an RJ85 air tanker making a retardant drop on the Crow Peak Fire near Spearfish, South Dakota June 27, 2016. The image below may show the price “starting at $0.00”. That of course is not correct. Click on it to get more information.
18 BAe-146/RJ85 air tankers expected to be operational this year
Above: T-10 (a BAe-146), another BAe-146, and an RJ85 (center) at La Grande, OR. Photo by Josh Annas.
The number of RJ85 and BAe-146 air tankers continues to grow. According to BAE Systems there are likely to be 18 of the aircraft that are operational by later this year and there are four more in various levels of conversion.
The two quad-jet aircraft are similar — both are made by BAE — and can carry up to about 3,000 gallons of retardant utilizing gravity to empty the tanks.
During the 2016 wildfire season the 14 in-service BAe 146-200s and Avro RJ85s of Neptune Aviation and Conair/Aero-Flite flew a combined total of over 5,800 tanker missions, dropping in excess of 12.5 million gallons of retardant.
A further eight BAe 146/Avro RJs are under conversion, with four scheduled to enter service during 2017.
Neptune Aviation’s fleet of seven BAe 146s flew a total of 2,880 hours on airtanker operations in the United States and Canada. Dan Snyder, Neptune’s Chief Operating Officer explained: “We are a US national resource. Wherever the US Forest Service has the need or request we can and do get dispatched”.
He added: “The yearly utilization average per aircraft varies greatly from year to year based on the fire season. Some years it is 200 hours per aircraft; others it can be 400 hours per aircraft. Fire operations in a day vary greatly as well. Some days there are no flights; some days only one. Sometimes it can be up to 10-15 missions a day. The distance to the fire, weather, and fire activity all affect this number.”
Seven of Neptune’s BAe 146s are under Exclusive Use Contracts with the USFS, along with four P2V Neptunes. An additional BAe-146 is contracted to CAL FIRE in California.
More recently, one of Neptune’s BAe 146s was on an assignment in Chile for several weeks.
Neptune has acquired and is converting a further two BAe 146-200s into airtankers to be ready for this year’s fire season.
Conair of Abbotsford, Canada, and its US subsidiary Aero-Flite, has a total of seven Avro RJ85s in service as airtankers, with an eighth aircraft under conversion ready for the 2017 fire season.
Four of Conair/Aeroflite’s RJ85s are earmarked for the 2017 Exclusive Use Contract with the USFS.
Jeff Berry, Conair’s Director of Business Development, stated that by early November the seven in-service aircraft had flown more than 430,000 km in support of wildfire operations on hundreds of fires in the United States and Canada during 2016. He added: “That is equivalent to a distance greater than 10 times around the world and the volume of retardant delivered to control wildfires was greater than the volume of six Olympic swimming pools.”
In addition, one of Conair’s RJ85s was recently deployed during the down under summer under contract to the State of Victoria to help in suppressing bushfires.
Slow motion video of air tanker drops
This video has excellent footage of air tanker 131, a C-130Q (Bomber 390 in Australia) and Bomber 391, an RJ85, dropping water during the air show at Avalon, Victoria in Australia during the weekend of March 4. Both of Coulson’s C-130’s have since returned to North America.
It appears from the Facebook post below that the RJ85’s contract down under may also be drawing to a close.