Air Tanker 96 at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019. Tim Crippin.Tim Crippin sent us these photos he took at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019 of air tankers working the Lumgrey Fire on the Klamath National Forest in Northern California.
Thanks Tim!
Air Tanker 160 at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019. Tim Crippin.
Air Tanker 94 at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019. Tim Crippin.
Air Tankers 94 and 95 at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019. Tim Crippin.
Air Tanker 163 at Medford, Oregon June 17, 2019. Tim Crippin.
Tanker 132The Country Fire Authority recently released some excellent photos of aircraft that are fighting bushfires in Victoria, Australia.
Tanker 162
Tanker 160
Tim Crippin took these photos on July 31 of air tankers at Medford, Oregon. Thanks Tim!
In addition to the Canadian air tankers being assigned to Alaska (seven recently that we know of) there are three air tankers under contract with the U.S. Forest Service in the state, according to information we received from today from Jennifer Jones, a spokesperson for the agency:
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Mike and John.
Typos or errors, report them HERE.
Because of the recent high fire danger, additional resources, including three air tankers and 16 smokejumpers, have arrived in Alaska to bolster the aircraft fleet and jumpers already in place. These photos were taken and portions of the captions were written by Sam Harrel of the Bureau of Land Management/Alaska Fire Service.
A photo of Aero-Flite’s Tanker 160, an RJ85, parked on the ramp in Missoula near Neptune’s hangar, Tuesday afternoon, July 15.
Jeff Zimmerman took this photo of Aero Flite’s Tanker 160, an Avro RJ85 which was converted into an air tanker by Conair. It was shot during the grid test at Fox Field in southern California December 13, 2013. More photos and a video of Tanker 160 at the grid test can be found HERE. The test involves dropping retardant over a grid of hundreds of cups, intended to measure the volume and consistency of the pattern when it hits the ground.
Last year Aero-Flite received a contract for two Avro RJ85 air tankers from the U.S. Forest Service as part of the agency’s next-generation air tanker program.
You can see more of Jeff’s photography at his site. Thanks Jeff.
Erickson Aero Tanker’s T-101, an MD-87, went through the same tests last week.
On December 11 Aero Flite’s Tanker 160 began a series of retardant drop tests for their Avro RJ85 at Fox Field in southern California. The aircraft, converted into an air tanker by Conair, was expected to perform 20 to 25 drops over a two or three day period. The process involves dropping retardant over a grid of thousands of cups, intended to measure the volume and consistency of the pattern when it hits the ground. The Interagency AirTanker Board requires passing this and other certifications before an aircraft can be “carded” as a federal air tanker, which makes it eligible for a contract to fight fires. Both paid and inmate fire crews were on hand at Fox Field to assist with the set-up of the grid and the collection of the cups after each drop.
Randy Johnson uploaded this video:
Tanker 160, an RJ85 which is similar to a BAe-146, is being converted by Conair for Aero Flite, which received a contract June 7 for two RJ85s. The aircraft were not ready and missed the contractual start date a couple of months later. The U.S. Forest Service then issued “cure notices” to Aero Flite and two other companies that received the next generation contracts for five air tankers, none of which met the required start date. Aero Flite responded saying the aircraft would be available between April and June, 2014. Later in a justification for awarding a sole source contract to Neptune for two BAe-146 air tankers, the USFS wrote they were “not confident that five of the seven contracted NextGen airtankers will be available to fight fires in 2014″.
Thanks go out to the Los Angeles County Fire Department which took these photos.
Thanks and a hat tip go out to John
The RJ85 (similar to a BAe-146) that Conair is converting into an air tanker for Aero Flite made a test drop recently at the Abbotsford airport in British Columbia, and the video showed up on YouTube:
On September 11 we wrote about Tanker 160 and included a couple of photographs.
Thanks go out to Walter.
Conair Group of Abbotsford, British Columbia has started flight testing their BAe Avro RJ85, identified as Tanker 160, which is being converted from a jet-powered airliner into an air tanker. Conair is building two of them for Aero Flite. The RJ85 is a derivative of the BAe-146, but with improved engines. The 146 first flew in 1981 while the RJ85 was first delivered in 1993. Conair is the largest air tanker operator in the world with a fleet of around 50 fixed-wing special mission aircraft, including Convair 580s, Conair Firecats, Douglas DC-6s, and Lockheed Electra air tankers.
Tanker 160 reminds me of one of the “Guppy” type aircraft heavily modified to carry large cargo items. Aero Union sold the Mini Guppy below to Erickson in 1988 who then used it to haul heavy equipment until 1995, when it was retired to the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon, where it resides today.
BAE Systems Regional Aircraft is making specialist engineering contributions to Conair and three other aircraft conversion programs underway in North America.
Neptune has acquired two BAe-146s which were converted by Tronos in Canada. Tronos has four more in progress for Neptune.
Minden Air Corp. has been working on their conversion of a BAe-146 for several years and began flight testing it this summer. A second BAe is under development and eventually these aircraft will replace the venerable P2V Neptune currently in service with Minden.
Air Spray Aviation Services of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada which currently has a fleet of Lockheed Electra turboprop air tankers has established a US base at Chico, California and has acquired a BAe 146-200 for conversion.