DC-10 Fire Bomber

[Nesti (Mark)]

I saw Derek's thread about a Helicopter fire bomber...funnily-enough, I received an email just this morning from SA CFS, so thought I'd post it.

In the email was a YouTube link showing a DC-10 water bomber. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtiIX9lax-s

The fire was a controlled burn for testing the planes effectiveness.

The email reads as though the Vic CFS (Vic Gov) own the aircraft now and that the SA CFS are able to utilise it also. Not sure if that's correct; be great if it were the case.

Nice plane though!

[iceman (Mike)]

Wow, pretty cool. A slightly longer video here I saw on the suggested ones at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kdcIbWYEWI&NR=1

Seems dangerous to fly so low during an intense fire though.

[Batfink (Peter)]

I heard the only problem with these big water bombers is that all other fire fighting air traffic has to be cleared whilst these are in the air, which can actually slow things down.
Peter.

[TrevorW]

What about soot in the intakes

[Nesti (Mark)]

Originally Posted by iceman

Wow, pretty cool. A slightly longer video here I saw on the suggested ones at the end.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kdcIbWYEWI&NR=1

Seems dangerous to fly so low during an intense fire though.

Yeah, I saw that clip this morning after I watched the first. I knew they were trialling the plane, just wasn't aware that they had purchased it...if in fact they did. Perhaps, as in the case of the second clip, it's still only a trial.

In the case of a 'crown fire' I think the job would be to dump the retardant ahead of the fire's path, denying the fire fuel rather than to put-out the fire; using plain old water to put-out small fires directly. (see bottom of page 3; http://www.dpc.vic.gov.au/Bushfires/1-ind-Ward,Fred.pdf)

I don't think it's possible to fly any aircraft above a really bad fire, 1. because of the visibility and, 2. the thermal updraft would be intense (100kph) and would carry the retardant away...with the plane perhaps as well (see; http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1971538).

[GeoffW1 (Geoff)]

Hi,

Fascinating. The retardant seems to come out of the plane forever, but was actually 10 sec of video.

I would not have thought a DC-10 could fly slow enough, but apparently the type is known for a low stalling speed, and can fly at 120 knots with 50 degrees of flap out.

If they keep the fuel load down, it can apparently carry 45000 L of retardant.

The skycrane is Elvis, so what is this one called?

Cheers

[Jules76 (Julian)]

You call that fire bomber? Now this is a fire bomber...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXSwypIGWGY

747 Supertanker with a capacity of up to 94,850 litres. Can dump water or fire retardant for a distance of 5km! Was used for the first time to fight fires in California and Spain in 2009.

http://www.evergreenaviation.com/supertanker/index.html

[WarpSpider74 (Derek)]

Awesome. Big Toys for serious work