747 fire bomber

Point taken.

Unwarranted assumptions on my part indeed. Apologies 🙂

Moggy

I think the guys who fly the waterbombers are a breed apart. I doubt many of them would want to swop their kind of flying for yours either.

Certainly the one I met at Albenga a few years ago wasn’t for taking an airline job under any circumstances.

Moggy

And fair enough for you to think this as I currently fly the 747 200 / 300 you would believe it is mostly ILS to ILS, in a radar vectored environment,
(which it is for the most part)
But I did spend 2 years with Conair in British Columbia back in the late 80`s flying their Bird dog Aerostar, so I am pretty familiar with containment ops, and I stand by my assertion that “who ever” flys a 74 in a fire environment will have their hands full. I have no doubt that this has all been thoroughly discussed and studied by Evergreen, as it would have been critical to the conversion, but I belive it will still be a challenge.
But my point Moggy, dont assume just because a guy flys a certain type that is where his sole interests lie, I still compete in Aerobatics in a single seat Pitts, and I fly floatplanes on a regular basis, ( just two days ago a Caravan on Amphibs)
the airlines are work, flying is fun!
Cheers!

exactly! another “issue” is the need to build more bases to actually fill up these beasts – most airfields where air tankers are based now are simply too small.

I think any operations in the USA would be on low lying flat areas like California – can’t imagine them here in Colorado at this altitude and rugged terrain!

anyway, I’d rather see the old birds fly.

here are some shots taken at my local airport yesterday

If you take Southern California, you won’t exactly have flat terrain where the forests are. Most of the flat land is built, or composed of high grass (OK, that is highly flammable 😉 )..;

well, I fly the Classic, and I have to say I wouldn’t fancy doing this type of flying in it!

I think the guys who fly the waterbombers are a breed apart. I doubt many of them would want to swop their kind of flying for yours either.

Certainly the one I met at Albenga a few years ago wasn’t for taking an airline job under any circumstances.

Moggy

i cant see it working some how dont fire bombers have to do low level pass’s in tight areas can you really see a 747 flying up a down canyons?

The primary purpose of heavy air tankers is not to direcly extinguish fires – in fact, dropping large quantities of retardant directly onto a fire will often just “blow” the fire outwards from the drop zone and cause it to spread. The heavy tankers usually lay down a barrier of retardant (its a mixture of water and chemicals that actually sticks to trees and such like) on the area immediately surrounding a fire, and thus prevents the fire spreading – the fire effectively burns itself out as all the combustable material in the area already burning is consumed.

One of the benefits of the smaller tankers (up to P-2 Neptune size, etc) is / was that they could get into fairly confined areas – canyons etc – to drop on fires that often occur in such areas. Clearly the 747 tanker will not be as manoueverable but would have benefits wetting large unburned areas somewhat more quickly than conventional tankers could do it.

exactly! another “issue” is the need to build more bases to actually fill up these beasts – most airfields where air tankers are based now are simply too small.

I think any operations in the USA would be on low lying flat areas like California – can’t imagine them here in Colorado at this altitude and rugged terrain!

anyway, I’d rather see the old birds fly.

here are some shots taken at my local airport yesterday

sounds. interesting

Simple dude a newbie must have been trawling the archives.

I posted about it’s first Take off a month ago tilted coming to a fire station near you :D.

Fair enough, just thought that a two year gap might have warrented the start of a new thread. :).

Maybe cuz Evergreen have actually recently flown a 747 fire bomber and conducted some demos… Seeing as the project is now a reality, seems reasonable to debate it again,

Andy

Why on earth was this thread brought back up? It’s over two years old!

Simple dude a newbie must have been trawling the archives.

Why on earth was this thread brought back up? It’s over two years old!

The primary purpose of heavy air tankers is not to direcly extinguish fires – in fact, dropping large quantities of retardant directly onto a fire will often just “blow” the fire outwards from the drop zone and cause it to spread. The heavy tankers usually lay down a barrier of retardant (its a mixture of water and chemicals that actually sticks to trees and such like) on the area immediately surrounding a fire, and thus prevents the fire spreading – the fire effectively burns itself out as all the combustable material in the area already burning is consumed.

One of the benefits of the smaller tankers (up to P-2 Neptune size, etc) is / was that they could get into fairly confined areas – canyons etc – to drop on fires that often occur in such areas. Clearly the 747 tanker will not be as manoueverable but would have benefits wetting large unburned areas somewhat more quickly than conventional tankers could do it.

Sounds a bit weird to me.
What’s the purpose. With the massive fires here in south of France we are quite used to watch the water bombers in summer.

Those are mainly Canadair CL 415. Those birds fill their tanks on the fly over a calm bay or a lake and fly to their target right away. They are agile , efficient , and slow which is an advanyage in this situation.

How about the 747? I don’t see a 747 filling his tanks on the fly !!!.
It would have to land , stop, have his tanks filled with water , take off again etc… It would be unefficient , expensive and dangereous.
The advantage would be to be able to drop a massive amaount of water at once.

However a jet would have to fly much faster than the CL415 so maybe some specialist could tell more …

Check http://groupeaeronefs.free.fr/mono09.htm if you’re interested in watching pictures of the bird in action

Calm down 😉

Have you considered the tankerage a 747 like this would carry? Would be enough to snuff out some fires on its own I imagine.
The 747 Fire Bomber, I’d imagine, is supposed to be a large support firefighter, not a replacement of those already in service.
All Firebombing is dangerous, what makes this any more so? Ok its a larger aircraft… but does that mean we should stick with the smaller planes that take longer to snuff out fires?

If one 747 snuffs out a fire on its own in one run (due to its humungous load), as opposed to three CL415’s taking two or three runs at it to do the same thing, would that qualify as being efficient?
Would it not then be worth the delay in filling its tanks up?

I’d say that one 747 firebomber on duty could potentialy free up 3 or 4 CL415’s for other fires. Surely that actually ups the efficiency and public safety?

Here’s the current situation:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/5108544.stm

Why discuss one to the exclusion of the others?

http://community.discoverychannel.ca/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/56810831/m/86910309/r/717105641

Sounds a bit weird to me.
What’s the purpose. With the massive fires here in south of France we are quite used to watch the water bombers in summer.

Those are mainly Canadair CL 415. Those birds fill their tanks on the fly over a calm bay or a lake and fly to their target right away. They are agile , efficient , and slow which is an advanyage in this situation.

How about the 747? I don’t see a 747 filling his tanks on the fly !!!.
It would have to land , stop, have his tanks filled with water , take off again etc… It would be unefficient , expensive and dangereous.
The advantage would be to be able to drop a massive amaount of water at once.

However a jet would have to fly much faster than the CL415 so maybe some specialist could tell more …

Check http://groupeaeronefs.free.fr/mono09.htm if you’re interested in watching pictures of the bird in action

Is evergreen based in Alaska? They’ll have to build loads of these. Two for Europe, one for Australia/ Oceania, two for Asia, well Africa won’t need them because they burn down forests constantly; South America won’t care either, and five for America.
And what about calm wind-situations? Well, if this occurs, this huge amount of water wouldn’t be needed (fire spreads less rapidly and is easier to extinguish). But what about the smoke? Can the engines tolerate that? Or do they just have to make an approach so that they don’t come in the smoke?
😮

Originally posted by canadair
well, I fly the Classic, and I have to say I would`nt fancy doing this type of flying in it! Granted, it would be empty, stripped, no packs, many systems removed/ not req. but still, hand flying the aircraft down low, on a blustery day is extremely fatigueing for any length of time, as well to be effective it would have to be flown at min flaps 10 to get back to a speed to be effective.
The VREF of an empty 200 is around 121 with flaps 30, min control, ( shaded area) is 118 so this is as slow as it can get anyway. The standard dump rate with all pumps, (6) going is 5000 per min, obviously they would drastically increase that with a center tank dump system, but the logistics of such a system are beyond me!
Another point is visibility, the nose drop from flap 25 to 30 is quite pronounced, but at 10 not great, so 200 feet above trees at 10 would not be comfortable.
I imagine poling the thing around down low in the turb and mountains would be apsolutely terrifying!
I guess they could do it, but I sure won`t be first in line to give it a go! 😉

Sure is interesting to get Pilot of type’s view on this.
Thanks for the contribution canadair!

Originally posted by canadair
well, I fly the Classic, and I have to say I would`nt fancy doing this type of flying in it! Granted, it would be empty, stripped, no packs, many systems removed/ not req. but still, hand flying the aircraft down low, on a blustery day is extremely fatigueing for any length of time, as well to be effective it would have to be flown at min flaps 10 to get back to a speed to be effective.
The VREF of an empty 200 is around 121 with flaps 30, min control, ( shaded area) is 118 so this is as slow as it can get anyway. The standard dump rate with all pumps, (6) going is 5000 per min, obviously they would drastically increase that with a center tank dump system, but the logistics of such a system are beyond me!
Another point is visibility, the nose drop from flap 25 to 30 is quite pronounced, but at 10 not great, so 200 feet above trees at 10 would not be comfortable.
I imagine poling the thing around down low in the turb and mountains would be apsolutely terrifying!
I guess they could do it, but I sure won`t be first in line to give it a go! 😉

Even though I’m not a pilot, that’s precisely what I was talkin’ about. 😎