Martin Mars to California

The Mars landed and took off, so hopefully it is working the fires. It actually had two bird strikes on its flight south.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-columbia/story/2007/10/25/bc-waterbomber.html?ref=rss

Tell that to the people in Malibu, Lake Arrowhead, Riverside County… etc.

All far closer to L.A. than San Diego.

LA is surrounded on three sides by fires.

There are fires on the 3 sides, but I’d hardly say we’re surrounded by fires. Only smoke I’ve seen here was a few wisps this morning about 7am when I left the house.
SanDeigo is the place getting hammered, not LA.

Who wants to see the Mars landing on Lake Elsinore? It landed yesterday, Wednesday and was supposed to be fire fighting today, Thursday, but have had no reports yet!:confused:

http://www.pe.com/video/index.html?nvid=186645

A single Mars waterbomber will be sent to California to fight the fires that have devestated Southern California these past few days. The Mars will leave Wednesday morning from Sproat Lake on Vancouver Island, it has been directed to the San Diego area where 500,000 people have evacuated to safer areas.

The Mars had a birdstrike on its empennage on its way south and is being checked for damage.:o

Evergreen 747

found a video of this monster making a drop.

http://www.aviationexplorer.com/747_water_tanker.htm

😮 is all i will say

USFS Cobra

In my view this is still the sleekest looking fire fighting aircraft, it has FLIR mounted where the gun used to be as well as collision avoidance, real time video streaming and lots of other goodies.
Paul

http://www.radioreference.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48036

Here is some info on the DC-10. Though it looks like the Government forced the 747 out of action some months ago. Evergreen wanted to use it off season as a cargo carrier and the FAA said NO! So it was removed from service as being to expensive to keep sitting around all year waiting for fire season. Tell it to the thousands of folks in CA!

From waterbombers.org blog
**********
DC-10 SUPERTANKER CONTRACT AWARDED!

After a hard fight and many setbacks, the DC-10 Supertanker finally received a seasonal contract from CalFire. And not just for a year, but for three! Apparently public pressure due to a media blitz and letter-writing campaign initiated by Wildfire Research Network (WRN), along with a high-profile brushfire in Griffith Park, convinced Governor Schwarzenegger to award the contract through emergency funds. This massive aircraft will now be available within an hour of being called to fight fires in a wide radius that covers all of Southern California. For fires to the north, it will take a bit longer to get there, but can be reached at jet speeds. With a payload of 12,000 gallons, this will provide a tremendous boost to firefighters on the ground. Fire managers who have commented on the DC-10’s performance in fires during 2006 were very favorably impressed with its effectiveness. On the Esperanza Fire, it was credited with providing 60% of the containment of that blaze with only a handful of drops, something that would have taken smaller air-tankers dozens of drops to complete.

But the DC-10 brings more to the table than just a large payload. Experiments done in the 1970’s point to the possibility of performing drops at 10,000 feet with polyacrylate gels to actually modify weather, cooling temperatures and raising the humidity over a fire for a short period of time, causing the fire to “lay down”. The fire chiefs of both LA County and LA City questioned Tony Morris and Bob Cavage of WRN last fall to see if this could be done by the DC-10. If so, then smaller air-tankers could follow the DC-10 in and make drops with gel on hot spots during the fire’s reduced activity, allowing them to effectively tear the heart out of a blaze and turning the ground effort into one of mopping up, something that takes considerably less resources. The cost savings of such a technique could be substantial, and would also increase resources available for other emergencies. Welcome to a new era in aerial firefighting!

Wasn’t there a 747 being set up to do this by Evergreen? that is heavy firepower!.

Anybody know what the proposed capacity of this is to be and the fill up/release times?

Roger Smith.

Sunday news reports said the winds were 50-60+ mph…no place for water bombers, fixed wing or helicopters.
Tuesday the winds died enough for tankers to get airborne.

It will be great to see the Mars & DC-10 join the battle.
Evergreen stopped work on their 747 program, wonder if this will revive it?

The news reports are mindboggling. Airliner passengers can see the smoke from tens of miles away. One fire is expected to march 35 miles westward to the ocean. LA is surrounded on three sides by fires. Some evacuation centers are themselves being evacuated.

As for the tankers, intense smoke is hampering air operations. The thermals can’t be fun either.

I was wondering if we would see the Mars. Soooo much fire going on. Seen the DC-10 water bomber in action on the news as well as a smattering of other more common types. Wasn’t there a 747 being set up to do this by Evergreen? that is heavy firepower!.