Yeah, pretty much puts all the other water bombers to shame, just on volume of water alone ! Pretty impressive.
Very cool! Is there any special "flying" while dumping all of that water? Does the sudden weight loss have some effect?
Jump to 2:13 Same as the Evergreen Supertanker, albeit on a -400 platform. Also the Evergreen held 24,000 gallons, this one only 19,000 gallons (not sure why 5,000 less - should be more). Of course the Evergreen has been grounded for 2 years since bankruptcy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KvBRWTumoZI Anyway, pretty cool
Ive watched the DC-10's drop water/retardent..pretty cool to see them come in low with that large of a plane..the 944 should be even more impressive...
This is an amendment to the Evergreen STC, and uses the same tank system as before, so not sure about the statement regarding reduced volume.
On this page Fire Aviation ? News & commentary about aerial firefighting, air tankers, and helicopters "Most of the retardant delivery system was taken from Version 1.0 of the 747-100 Supertanker that was built and used for several years by Evergreen. When that company declared bankruptcy Global Supertanker bought the system and the intellectual property. They refurbished the hardware and upgraded parts of it, then installed it in an upgraded aircraft, a 747-400. It was first seen by the general public at the Aerial Firefighting Conference March 22 at McClellan Air Field near Sacramento."
Nope, it's not. Not ready for action quite yet. Just arrived in the Springs. http://denver.cbslocal.com/2016/05/05/largest-firefighting-aircraft-in-u-s-flies-into-colorado-springs/
It is filled on the ground with either water or premixed retardant. Not many lakes large enough for a plane that size to scoop that much water in one pass. I wouldn't want to try it with 47 anyway. Not agile enough to make corrections.
Lots of fallow 747s out there. Hopefully we will see some more of them fighting fires. Even some new -8s.
We really need this aircraft on the Hayden Pass fire! LIVE BLOG: Hayden Pass Fire over 16K acres, 5 percent contained Tcar, are getting a lot of smoke from it, like we are?
Yes. I'm not sure if the smoke is from that, or the Beaver Creek Fire to the North... maybe both. It's been hazy off and on. When its calm its been very hazy. The breeze today has cleared it a bit. That fire is not very far from the Springs, where the plane is based.
