Fire fighting planes..anyone fly one?
Around here with small lakes it seems to me we need a lot of water based aircraft. This allows quick turn around especially with small country airports that might not have tremendous access to high volume water supplies. On the other had I read that such planes as the old PBY were actually less efficient for water delivery, than the smaller "air boss" aircraft, so WTF I know
I would assume you heard someone say “air boss” aircraft and thought it was a water or retardant dropping aircraft. “Air Boss” is what the ATGS (Air Tactical Group Supervisor) is called. That is Air Attack I mentioned under the first picture. They are the airspace manager and do not make drops or have that capability. They tend to fly above all of the water dropping aircraft and stay on station the longest amount of time.
All of the older aircraft are less efficient but they were not useless. Many of the aircraft today improved on what the older ones offered. The Bombardier above is just the latest in a long line of similar styles “Super Scoopers”. They need a large body of water.
The P3 Orion is a great aircraft that used to be a Navy sub hunter and eves dropping aircraft. Very good aircraft. Great airframe and good parts availability. The Navy just recently decommissioned the airframe. We have long used converted military aircraft.
As far as efficiency, once it gets above the fire, it is the VLATs. The converted passenger airliners. They can lay over a mile of retardant (pink stuff). They can do split load and salvo (all at once) loads.
What happens is the “Air Boss” or ATGS (call sign=Air Attack) determines where he wants the retardant or water using his ground and fire behavior experience. He will tell the VLAT pilot what flank or ridge line to make the drop and clear the airspace of helicopters and smaller planes like SEATs.
Sometimes there is a Lead Plane which is a small jet prop plane that can fly ahead of the VLAT and lay down smoke in the line that the VLAT needs to take. Sometimes they will make a practice run if it is a difficult drop. A difficult drop may be where the VLAT has to maneuver terrain. He’s got to be low enough to get the retardant to lay thick but be high enough to climb and bank out of the terrain.
When the VLAT pilot has received his mission he determines air speed and distance the drop needs to cover. He will then dial up the parameters on a keypad and it tells the system how long to hold the doors open and how open the doors need to be.
VLATs need commercial length runways so it takes a long time to get on station sometimes. When they finally get to the fire they often are the deciding factor on whether we can catch the fire today. Sometimes, they get diverted to another fire (usually because the other fire is threatening communities). They can be a game changer. I guess they’re not really efficient due to the longer ready time but they can really change the dynamics when they do get there.
Helicopters are what we want the most of due to troop shuttling and versatility.
