Neither the Mars nor the jet airliners were designed for firebombing, but the Mars is more suitable because of the load factors, piston advantage and Dan Ivor’s original brilliant idea. Adopting an aircraft optimised for high-level cruise and maximum loads for the (engineering) stressful job of firebombing looks good superficially, but I remain unconvinced.

Of course a Mars isn’t going to look manoeuvrable next to a C-415, but it’s not going to whizz by unable to get into the landscape wrinkles that a jet airline type has to.

Just thinking about it.

Richard, I’d love to see those photos!

Cheers,

I admit that I was thinking of the absolute maneuverability of the Mars, not compared to the DC-10 or 747.

I agree, putting a big jet down low sounds very hairy.

I’m putting a page of fire-fighting aircraft together for my website, I’ll post a link when it’s done. I’ll have 4 shots of the Mars on it.

Richard.

Now I ask: does the V-22 excel in any parameter except speed?

My understanding is that the V-22 flies twice as far, twice as fast with twice the payload of the existing helicopters. When I’ve heard them flying the Osprey has also been much quieter.

I’m not denying that the V-22 has issues, but these four parameters all sound like very important improvements for this type of aircraft.

Richard.

I’ve lived in the States for 10 years, often travelling domestically and internationally. I’ve never had any issue at all taking my 100-400mm and other gear as cabin baggage (had that lens the last 5 years, had an even bigger 150-500mm manual focus lens before that).

Richard.

Yes, excellent stuff – thanks for sharing them with us!

Richard.

Your first Meteor photo looks like an air-to-air shot, very nice!

Richard.

The USSR was gifted a tandem-rotor Vertol 44, the civilian version of the
H-21 helicopter, by President Eisenhower in the late 50s.

It’s on display at a museum…it recently was shown here in the forum in a discussion of the Yak-24 helicopter (they’re parked together at the museum).

Here’s a photo of the Yak-24 “Horse”, with the Vertol 44 behind it:

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/Museums/Monino/Highlights/index.html#Yak24Horse

I did supply a photo of this Vertol 44 for a book recently, can’t remember who the author was and I don’t think I’ve been paid yet! :diablo:

Richard.

My father flew with the RNZAF Sunderlands quite a bit up to Fiji.

The Sunderland at Hendon looks great, here are a few outside/inside photos from a review I put up a few months ago:

http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/Museums/Hendon/BritishWw2/index.html#SunderlandFromAbove

Richard.