Water Bombers in action

[WarpSpider74]

There was a large bushfire near my house in the North of Perth's metro are yesterday. FESA had several waterbombers on the scene to help control the blaze, which were filling up at a number of local sources. Two of the helicopters, including the giant Sikorsky, were filling up at the small lake in my local park. Needless to say, there was a large crowd in attendance to watch this awesome sight. Was amazing to watch, and as with all our firefighting crews these amazing pilots deserve our thanks.

My photos can be seen here (http://picasaweb.google.com.au/derek.mcallan/FESAWaterbombersFillingInTapping?au thkey=Gv1sRgCMmqg_2P26SMNQ&feat=directlink).

Most of them turned out pretty well considering they were taken from my old Olympus SP-550 at maximum optical zoom (18x) with no tripod :)

Cheers,
Derek

[JimmyH155]

Excellent photos:D How many litres does each chopper take?? I feel sorry for you guys over there in WA - my in-laws farm at Budgingarra got cleaned up a few weeks ago and every night I look at forecast and hope rain has hit you all over there, and every day it seems to be hotter:eyepop: The other day it was 38!!
We here in SE Qld are swimming in the stuff right now;)

[WarpSpider74]

The smaller helicopters, Aerospatiele AS350B3 Squirrels, hold a bit about 1100L in their tanks. There were 3 of them on the scene at the time. The big sucker is a Sikorsky S61 and holds 4000L, this beast is truly impressive to watch.

Send some rain over here!! The cloudless skies may be great for astronomy (pity about that full moon at the moment though :D) but we sure could use some wet stuff.