XBradTC

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XBradTC

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Air Attack! Western Wildfire Edition

Shu reached out yesterday to share with us. Turns out, there was a small fire near his home, and the air attack tanker assets were out. And apparently, chasing him. That’s an AT-802F, a floatplane tanker variant of a plane that was first designed as a cropduster. That’s just about the smallest fixed wing tanker…

Shu reached out yesterday to share with us. Turns out, there was a small fire near his home, and the air attack tanker assets were out. And apparently, chasing him.

That’s an AT-802F, a floatplane tanker variant of a plane that was first designed as a cropduster.

photo

That’s just about the smallest fixed wing tanker for firefighting I’m familiar with.

air-tractor-802F-fire-boss-5

Down here in SoCal, when we have a fire, we tend to contract for the big boy, the Tanker 10 modified DC-10.

10TANKER-3

In recent years, the use of converted surplus military aircraft has fallen largely due to maintenance and fatigue issues. So a new market has opened for large air tankers for firefighting. And the availability of airframes on the surplus market has led to retired regional airliners being a popular option. For instance, the BAe 146 was a very quiet regional airliner designed to serve airports like London City, and Midway, and other airports with noise restrictions. Moderately successful as an airliner, it has recently been a popular choice for tanker conversion.

BAe-146_air_tanker

Here’s a picture of a dry test taken about 10 years ago.

BAe-146_air_tanker_low_level_test

The fires in western Canada are bad enough right now that Coulson’s JRM Mars might be getting a contract to do some dropping later this week.

Martin_JRM_Mars_C-FLYL.YK_Pt_Hardy_BC_04.08R_edited-2

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  1. Shaun Evertson

    Hey, where’s Hoser?!?

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  2. LT Rusty

    I see the cropduster version of that first plane ALL the time here in the San Joaquin Valley, killing bugs and such. Really nifty little planes. They wouldn’t take a lot of modification to make a spiffy little COIN light attack plane. Great payload, good strong structure, good endurance. Great low-speed, low-altitude handling. Short & rough field capability.

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  3. Shu

    Thanks for the nod, that plane is nimble to the point of being an rc plane. He just popped in and out feet above the tree line .

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  4. mushdogs

    We’re getting smoke from our neighbors in the Great White North’s fires down here in our valleys. Have had more than a few smoke investigation calls because of it. I wish I could have gotten a few better pics of the air support during last years Chiwaukum Fire. Espescialy the Tanker 10 when it was on scene.

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  5. Al_in_Ottawa

    Someone at Air Tractor already thought of a COIN variant. It’s called the 802U.
    http://www.802u.com

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