I'm in awe !. What a fantastic bit of kit. Imagine the skill to pilot this thing so close to fires.
www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/boeing-737-deployed-in-newcastle-to-fight-bushfire-world-first/10547636
Select to expand quoteMark _australia said..
And Pete will post a pic as proof of chemtrails in 3,2,1......
and the fact it didn't travel in an arc across the curved surface of earth 
We need to tell pilot about those faulty pitotubes in their Boeing planes!The last thing we want is airplane crashing into forest and provoke even bigger fires.
www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/families-of-lion-air-victims-sue-boeing-over-aircraft-design/news-story/5c38f13a045496694466220fa03ca2d3
Remember they had the big DC-10 water bomber here over christmas 2017, that thing was a monster. That's an expensive load of water.
A very expensive way to fight a bush fire. I'd rather have a fleet of medium helicopters with long line buckets. A much quicker turnaround and can get in really close to where I want it. But they are great for the Pollies and publicity
A few years ago, the Aussie taxpayers gave Indonesia 9 x C130 "Herculese" heavy transport aircraft, along with a heap of parts. 
These things can carry something like 45 tonnes payload!!
I always figured that instead of giving them away, they should have been turned into water bombers and been spread around the RAAF airbases.
When they were not actively being used for firefighting they could have been used for training and keeping our aircrew's flying hours up to the required standards.
Cost too much to keep that many aircraft here all year round I'd reckon kato and sn. I'd imagine it'd be heaps cheaper to have a big tanker here on contract for our fire season and then send it back stateside for their fire season, although their fire season seems to be all year round lately.
Select to expand quotePaddles B'mere said..
Cost too much to keep that many aircraft here all year round I'd reckon kato and sn. I'd imagine it'd be heaps cheaper to have a big tanker here on contract for our fire season and then send it back stateside for their fire season, although their fire season seems to be all year round lately.
No , we contract them for summer only. Big ones just cost more dollars to sit around. A sky crane is about $20k+ a day on standby, 30k+ operational and a bucket of bolts refitted by a crew of 4. Fuel trucks and the tech crew always turn up before the big choppers.
Big aircraft are great for grassland but useless for forests and mountains. They just can't go slow or close enough to the fires. You also have to move all the crews way out of the way and that takes time. Used a few crop dusters before to slow stuff up and they can work quite well if the turn around is quick. Biggest is not better.
Select to expand quotekato said..Paddles B'mere said..
Cost too much to keep that many aircraft here all year round I'd reckon kato and sn.
No , we contract them for summer only. Big ones just cost more dollars to sit around.
Costs too much??
RAAF has EMPTY aircraft flying all around Australia, just to keep the aircrew's flying hours up to date.
Why not have "RAAF Reserve" recycled C130's fitted out with firefighting gear clocking up the hours instead of "front line" aircraft?
I am not an expert regarding aircraft performance, but C130's are designed for flying low and slow in dodgy conditions - which to my mind is exactly what firefighting is all about.
Select to expand quotesn said..kato said..Paddles B'mere said..
Cost too much to keep that many aircraft here all year round I'd reckon kato and sn.
No , we contract them for summer only. Big ones just cost more dollars to sit around.
Costs too much??
RAAF has EMPTY aircraft flying all around Australia, just to keep the aircrew's flying hours up to date.
Why not have "RAAF Reserve" recycled C130's fitted out with firefighting gear clocking up the hours instead of "front line" aircraft?
I am not an expert regarding aircraft performance, but C130's are designed for flying low and slow in dodgy conditions - which to my mind is exactly what firefighting is all about.
No, C130 are designed to carry stuff, not spray water stuff onto fires. Once a fire gets to a certain size nothing is going to put it out. We can only just redirect it around our houses while waiting for nature to give us a break. Helicopters, crop dusters are great for this and then allow ground crews to get in. We continue to build in dumb spots or not accept that fires will happen. Btw been doing this fire stuff for awhile. 
Select to expand quotekato said..
RAAF has EMPTY aircraft flying all around Australia, just to keep the aircrew's flying hours up to date.
Why not have "RAAF Reserve" recycled C130's fitted out with firefighting gear clocking up the hours instead of "front line" aircraft?
I am not an expert regarding aircraft performance, but C130's are designed for flying low and slow in dodgy conditions - which to my mind is exactly what firefighting is all about.
No, C130 are designed to carry stuff, not spray water stuff onto fires. Once a fire gets to a certain size nothing is going to put it out. We can only just redirect it around our houses while waiting for nature to give us a break. Helicopters, crop dusters are great for this and then allow ground crews to get in. We continue to build in dumb spots or not accept that fires will happen. Btw been doing this fire stuff for awhile.
I go back even further.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_Airborne_FireFighting_System
They weren't really a cost effective way to deal with bushfire.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_firefighting_and_forestry_in_southern_Australia
"During the summer of 1981-82 equipment was borrowed from the United States Forest Service for evaluation under operational conditions in Victoria. The equipment known as Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS) was trialled bombing bushfires with a slurry of an Australian made chemical fire retardant (Amgard-A11) in quantities up to 11,000 litres per drop.[37][38]
A C-130 Hercules was obtained from the Royal Australian Air Force for the trials. The roll on/roll off system was installed and operated by 36 Squadron from RAAF Richmond in NSW but operated from Hamilton, Mangalore and RAAF East Sale for the trial.[37]
MAFFS could deliver a much greater volume than was possible with the smaller agricultural aircraft contracted to the Forests Commission at the time and was used effectively in the suppression of bushfires at Broadford, Bright and Orbost.[37] Due to its low usage in 1981-82 MAFFS was again trialled in 1982-83 where it made 175 drops.[1]"
I'd imagine there could be money/logistics issues. Those Canadair water bombers wouldn't have the range to quickly fly here so they'd have to be shipped at expense (ie they're not making money while they're on a boat) and it wouldn't be cost effective to have them here permanently and only potentially used for a small part of the year. The roll on system in a C-130 makes a bit of sense if the aircraft can be re-purposed for the rest of the year, but the infrastructure cost of having a fleet of C-130's sitting here on standby would be too much. Cheaper/easier to have the smaller choppers and a suitable large machine on contract for when you need it. It's always about money
^^^Google says that aircraft requires less than 1500m to descend below 15m, scoop and get back above 15m altitude. Perhaps in WA at least there might be a couple of options they could fly into, but apart from Wellington Dam all the big ones are drinking water catchment/storage. I'd have to think Water Corp don't want an entire dam contaminated in the event of a crash or spillage of retardant?
Go to Canada on google earth and zoom in anywhere.
In the early 80s the Canadians tried to sell water bombing CL215s to the Australian govt. Malcolm Fraser thought "that's an idea , I'd better first get CSIRO to look into it". I got on to the team CSIRO assembled to check it out. Ended up bringing out a converted DC6 water bomber from the US for testing. They take off from runways. There's never a good fire when you want one, but we spent a lot of time putting out ice-cream containers in the bush to determine the drop patterns. That's just one of the issues with fire bombing. Getting the ideal pattern for the particular fire being dealt with.
Here's the DC6 we evaluated in Victoria. I once had the task of photographing it from a cherry picker as it came in just above the canopy to bomb the ice cream containers. The mechanic had told me " this thing has multi spark plugs". It had 144, two for each cylinder. when it passes 10 metres overhead you'll never forget it.
Select to expand quotekato said..
A very expensive way to fight a bush fire. I'd rather have a fleet of medium helicopters with long line buckets. A much quicker turnaround and can get in really close to where I want it. But they are great for the Pollies and publicity
We have those here in the U.S. and were put to use just recently here in California. The thing about those that makes them worth it, they can lay down a trail of retardant over a mile long! Choppers can't do that, a bunch of choppers can't do that. So turnaround time isn't that much of an issue.
Ian, that DC-6 would have been way too cool, the noise would have been ridiculous 
Select to expand quoteMastbender said..kato said..
A very expensive way to fight a bush fire. I'd rather have a fleet of medium helicopters with long line buckets. A much quicker turnaround and can get in really close to where I want it. But they are great for the Pollies and publicity
We have those here in the U.S. and were put to use just recently here in California. The thing about those that makes them worth it, they can lay down a trail of retardant over a mile long! Choppers can't do that, a bunch of choppers can't do that. So turnaround time isn't that much of an issue.
Very different veg in the us/ Canada, I've had fire burn through retardant lines cos most of it is in the canopy. Lat and Mat aircraft have there place in fighting fires and are good at slowing down the spread. But grunts on ground are how fires are put out and it takes weeks of hard work after the media has moved on. Earthmovers , rakehoes and fire are the most used pieces of kit not water and aircraft.
Well we could do with one of them around here today don't think the choppers and crop dusters are getting on top the fire near us.
Select to expand quoteGWatto said..
Well we could do with one of them around here today don't think the choppers and crop dusters are getting on top the fire near us.
Just read the 737 is actually on its way, relief for those poor souls affected
Select to expand quotePaddles B'mere said..
Ian, that DC-6 would have been way too cool, the noise would have been ridiculous awesome
fixed it for you
Select to expand quotePaddles B'mere said..
I'd imagine there could be money/logistics issues. Those Canadair water bombers wouldn't have the range to quickly fly here
out of curiosity I did a google for maximum ranges
C130 military transport aircraft = ferrying range of 5250km
CL415 amphibian water bomber = ferrying range of 2443km
PBY Catalina amphibian = ferrying range of 4030Km [standard WW2 military specification]
PBY Catalina amphibian = service range of 6652km [as per QANTAS' WW2 flights between Swan river Perth and Colombo SriLanka]
Just goes to show, if you want to get the best out of an aircraft - you can rely on QANTAS!!
Looks like they couldn't complete any runs, too much smoke. Hopefully everyone heeds the advice and gets out of the way.
Select to expand quoteShifu said..
Does the Canadian system not work here? Lack of handy lakes?
I lived up in the high Provence region near a village called bargemon, the terrain around there would be almost impossible to fight fires
We would hear the village warning sirens go off in the summer then the drone of the canadair fire fighting planes
Actually watched them at lac st Croix
the crew would be hanging out of the door giving distance to water contact as they skimmed across the lake
Then first plane would direct the others with his drop onto the fire
amazing skill into undulated mountainous terrain
In 2009 we were water skiing on lake Eildon during the Black Sunday bush-fires .
It was probably a bit dumb.
Driving up the mountain past King Lake area was already burnt out . Everything still smoldering.
It was very strange , visibility on the water was about 150 m from all the smoke . Strange skiing into a cloud .
We heard this horrible loud noise and stopped the boat, my mate on a knee board
pulling himself towards the boat.
Less than 50 m away Elvis , that huge orange water helicopter dropped its hose into the water to suck up water .
We were sh**ting ourselves , this thing is big , bloody noisy and reaked of kerosene .We were so close.
I will never forget the pilot giving the thumbs up at us as he took off.
He knew we were scared .
The extra noise and stink the thing put out lifting up was crazy. This thing must suck a huge amount of fuel.
I have photos , one of them would have to be the best photo ive ever taken.
Select to expand quotejn1 said..
I'm in awe !. What a fantastic bit of kit. Imagine the skill to pilot this thing so close to fires.
www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-23/boeing-737-deployed-in-newcastle-to-fight-bushfire-world-first/10547636
And some not so good.... (not greatly expectable with a C-130 Hercules , so wonder how it comes to be , i read the original articles but no info)
Australia made the second biggest order in US for stealth planes.There are very useful for fighting our bush fires, don't you think? You can't see a thing and suddenly whole fire extinguished completely.Our 17 bln dollars wasted doesn't help much in covering US costs of half a trillion dollars for this stealthy toy,but we could buy plenty of helicopter cranes for the same money.Obviously somebody thought the real threat is nuclear armageddon, not a bush fire.
OK here are our 17 bln planes fighting bushfires in Australia. Obviously you could not see them over our fires because there are stealthy.
For that 17 bln we could purchase 850 Helicopters like that :
there are not stealty but you could not see them in action here either .Because we are not going to buy any.
Select to expand quoteMacroscien said:
there are not stealty but you could not see them in action here either .Because we are not going to buy any.
Gold bit off comedy just there
I can't comment on the 80s Canadian road show with the Canadairs, but I do remember a similar attempt in the late 90s. The Canadians went on to expel the myth we have here against the larger water bombing. They also proved that there is a suitable body of water to scoop from within a half hour turn around time of anything worth the effort.
As usual, the desision against the bombers was political rather than practical..
