Reply With QuoteOMG! They just showed the DC10 dropping on the fire (twice) on Channel 4.
I guess that newscaster Paul use to be a hotshot and had some stuff dropped on him, he said it hurt.
The plane (they said) was coming in "dirty, low and slow"
yea! DC-10 just made a drop, maybe one more before sunset. If they added the C-130's, they'd really knock this thing down...
OMG! They just showed the DC10 dropping on the fire (twice) on Channel 4.
I guess that newscaster Paul use to be a hotshot and had some stuff dropped on him, he said it hurt.
The plane (they said) was coming in "dirty, low and slow"
Evergreen spent $40M of their own dough to develop the 747 tanker. I read this July article about it in Aviation Week & Space Technology.....
Helluva aircraft. The water is discharged by 165 PSI air pressure and produces 50,000 pounds of thrust. The pilot retards the throttles momentarily during the drop to maintain altitude..... :jawdrop:
Evergreen 747 Supertanker Promises to Alter Aerial Firefighting Tenets
By William B. Scott
07/30/2006 04:09:03 PM
AIR TANKERS GO BIG TIME
Turning from base to final approach, Boeing 747-200 captain/pilot Cliff Hale calls for full flaps and adjusts engine power to keep the aircraft on a controlled flight path, aimed at a San Bernardino, Calif., airport taxiway. First Officer Bob Roshak calls altitudes as the huge aircraft descends. Several hundred feet above the ground, Hale gently pulls the 747's nose up, leveling at about 180 ft., then holds a 3-4-deg. nose-up attitude and 150-kt. airspeed.
"Stand by . . . ," he calls. Behind and to Hale's right, Steve Goddard, the flight engineer, double-checks a small display and control panel, confirming its settings are correct.
A few seconds later, I hear a loud, extended "whoosh" behind me, signaling that Hale has punched a "pickle button" on his control yoke. He slowly pulls four throttles back, maintaining the 747's slight nose-up attitude as 20,500 gal. of water blast through four 12-in. ports on the aircraft's belly. Driven by eight tanks of air pressurized to 165 psi., the 10-sec. deluge drenches several hundred yards of the targeted taxiway. The intense manmade rainstorm terminates as we fly past a crowd gathered near the airport terminal.
Monitoring the flat-panel display, Goddard calls, "That's it." Hale pushes the throttles forward, calls for flaps up, starts a climb, then banks left to downwind. A few minutes later, we're on the ground, taxiing slowly toward that waiting crowd. With its San Bernardino water drop, Evergreen Aviation's 747 Supertanker completes a five-state demonstration tour aimed at introducing this new tool to the aerial firefighting community. And this Aviation Week & Space Technology editor is a step closer to fully understanding what a U.S. Forest Service (USFS) executive suggested: High-capacity, next-generation air tankers could radically alter the aerial firefighting business.
Armed with 10,000-20,000 gal. of water/fire retardant, these aircraft might be able to extinguish relatively small fires, protect valuable structures single-handedly, and even alter the humidity over a fire at night, forcing the blaze to "lay down," so ground crews can contain them sooner.
A few wide-body air transports have been modified as air tankers in recent years, but their operators have yet to sign long-term contracts in the U.S. A Russian Ilyushin Il-76 has seen service overseas, yet a variety of political factors, resistance among veteran firefighters and severe cost constraints have kept the approximately 11,000-gal. tanker offshore. Evergreen Aviation's new 20,500-gal. 747 Supertanker and "10 Tanker STC's" 12,000-gal. DC-10 Supertanker are angling to get on U.S. fire lines, hampered primarily by scant USFS budgets and lingering questions about the suitability of high-capacity firefighting tankers. But that may change during this fire season.
Evergreen is negotiating for a USFS demonstration contract, but has a number of FAA and USFS hurdles and procedures to clear first. As of last week, the company had not secured FAA-certification of its firefighting system, nor Interagency Air Tanker Board (IATB) approvals to fight fire.
The "10 Tanker STC" DC-10--a joint venture that includes Omni Air International--has its FAA Supplemental Type Certificate covering tanker-related modifications, and recently received IATB approval of its external, gravity-drop tank system. In mid-July, though, the DC-10 Supertanker dropped two loads of retardant on a fire under a "call-when-needed" contract issued by the State of California.
The DC-10 has not completed a USFS Supertanker Operational Assessment Project (SOAP), which could preclude getting a federal demonstration contract this year. The Evergreen 747 completed its SOAP flights last spring, erasing a number of critics' concerns about the feasibility of supertankers.
In 2003, I flew on several firefighting flights to gain an appreciation for the challenges and demands of this unique sector of aviation (AW&ST Nov. 3, 2003, p. 62). Many air tanker, lead plane, air attack and other professional aerial firefighters I met were highly skeptical of a 747- or DC-10-size aircraft being used as an air tanker. "Not maneuverable enough to get down in the canyons. That much water/fire retardant will wash ground firefighters and equipment off the mountain," they predicted.
But the Evergreen 747 SOAP evaluation earlier this year dispelled many of those preconceptions. "The entire SOAP team was surprised at how maneuverable the 747 was in the confines of a fire traffic area," says Pat Norbury, USFS national aviation operations officer. "We expected much larger [flight] patterns and less utility in rough terrain. But it was actually quite maneuverable. It had no problem working with the lead plane [a King Air 90] . . . and making drops." The team concluded that "the [Evergreen] 747 appears to be a very viable resource for fire retardant and water delivery," she says.
My flight on the 747 Supertanker, plus myriad discussions with its designers, pilots, program managers and maintenance personnel, underscored the SOAP conclusion: this aircraft has considerable potential as a firefighting tanker. From an engineering and operations standpoint, Evergreen clearly has developed the sort of next-generation, purpose-built tanker the USFS has needed for some time. But a lot of nagging questions about its ultimate value will be answered only by putting the 747 into service, fighting fires.
"The key is cost-benefit. What's the value [delivered]?" Norbury asks. "In a high-value structures-protection situation, having one [tanker] with 20,000 gal. overhead could have tremendous value. It's unlikely you'd ever have that much conventional tanker [capacity] overhead at one time." Still, high per-flight-hour costs will have to be justified by clear benefits.
Evergreen says one 747 Supertanker can be as effective as seven P-3A Orion air tankers, which have a 3,000-gal. capacity. But with only 18 P-3s and smaller-capacity P2V Neptune tankers available under USFS contract this year, it's unlikely that a ground-based incident commander will ever have more than two or three available. That may open the door for supertankers, if critical resources (homes and entire communities, for example) are threatened by wildfires--assuming the big aircraft meet forest service safety and operational requirements.
"There are a lot of federal criteria [the 747 and DC-10] have yet to satisfy," Norbury cautions. "Every air tanker has to meet them." Despite congressional pressure to get both into firefighting service soon, hands are tied by USFS operational standards and regulations "written in blood," one official says. Many of those procedures have roots in past accidents.
Evergreen has invested more than three years and $40 million to develop its 747 Supertanker, and is anxious to start generating revenue. A company-owned "convertible" (cargo or passenger) version of a 747-200 was taken off profitable cargo routes and modified by adding internal tanks and a pressurized delivery system. Key features include:
*Ten fluid tanks that, collectively, hold about 20,500 gal. of water or fire retardant. These are installed on the aircraft's main cargo deck, mounted on removable pallets. The interior of each tank is painted and fitted with a rotating, 13 gal./min. water nozzle to clean the vessel and prevent corrosion.
"We have more than $1 million in these tanks, so we're concerned about getting more than two [fire] seasons [from] them," says Christopher B. Harris, vice president of maintenance for Evergreen International Airlines. He and Hale, the primary 747 Supertanker pilot and vice president of operations for Evergreen Supertanker Services, conceived of the system and have shepherded it through design, development and testing. Another key player was Dan Kottman, a former Evergreen engineer. The entire effort has enjoyed strong support from Evergreen's chairman and founder, Delford M. Smith, as well.
*Eight air tanks bolted to the transport's floor on the aft cargo deck. These tanks provide air pressurized to 165 psi., which forces water/retardant from the 10 fluid tanks.
*Four 12-in. ports or nozzles on the 747's belly, running along the centerline. When delivering water/retardant at "full power," they produce 50,000 lb. of thrust.
*A $250,000 data acquisition system that captures air data, fuel quantity, GPS position and tank-related parameters. Structural data are collected by 141 strain gages and five accelerometers on the flap tracks, vertical and horizontal tail surfaces and other locations. That system and the supertanker engineering design and FAA certification work were handled by South West Aero Group.
The 747 Supertanker is based on a self-contained concept-of-operation. "There was a lot of concern in the firefighting community about how they'd service this [huge tanker]," explains Harris. "So, we designed it as a turnkey operation. Just give us a fire hydrant, a forklift and a place to put a ground [water tank] bladder, and we're ready to go." Spare parts, ladders, hoses, maintenance personnel, and full galley are carried or installed on the aircraft. The tanker can operate from "any airport that has [sufficient] ramp space and an 8,000-ft. runway," Harris adds.
A large swimming pool-like bladder tank is assembled on the ramp and filled from a fire hydrant. Water or fire retardant is pumped from there into the 747's fluid tanks using an onboard hose-and-reel system.
The aircraft operates about 200,000 lb. under maximum gross weight, which gives it a substantial performance margin during firefighting ops. "We plan to drop at 400 ft. [altitude], but that depends on wind-drift. We can go down to 200 ft., terrain permitting," Hale says. "Drop speed will be 140-150 kt. Even in steep terrain, we can go to max-power, flaps 20 [deg.] and climb out, straight ahead. We use the same procedures as a missed approach. Even though we like a longer run-in, we don't need as much room on the other end [as today's prop-driven tankers]. In total space used, it's about the same."
The biggest challenge, Hale says, "is airspeed control--or, really, mass control. You don't want to let a heavy jet get slow, and it takes experience to know when it is."
Because the 747 delivers water/retardant under pressure, literally blowing fluid straight down, it can fly at higher, safer altitudes than tankers relying on gravity-drop systems. Still, piloting finesse is necessary to ensure a uniform pattern of water/retardant on the ground.
"We try to hold the deck angle at roughly 3 deg. nose-up," Hale says. "As the weight is reduced [during a 20,500-gal. delivery], the airplane wants to climb about 100 ft. So, we come back on the power about 20% and maintain a positive pitch angle. It's very much seat-of-the-pants flying at that point."
"This [tanker] could change the aerial firefighting paradigm," concludes Nels Jensen, a retired USFS pilot serving as an operations consultant to Evergreen. "In multiple-fire situations, where you need load after load [of retardant], it could change outcomes."
What a great description. Thanks...
word is they finally got the DC 10 flying, and it is making quite a dent in the fire, as.. holes shoulda had it flying yesterday morning
Good job Burt. Looks like the fire guys read ***boat.
We just pray this fire lays down for them tonight, and they get the DC 10 on it at day break.
Go Evergreen
...he asked retorically, knowing full well that our state and fed politicos are keeping the DC-10 and 747 tankers from being used on our recent forest fires. Now we've got 4 dead firefighters that may have been prevented by someone merely signing the right documents.
One of the talking heads says it was because of the winds. BS, the news choppers are all over the place. These tankers are well proven they can be a great aid in these kind of fires...
You may remember when earlier this year all the fires across Arizona? Fires everywhere then the fire starts near Sedona and gets worse and worse.The next thing they pull complete crews off fires from around the state and ship to there.My neighbor who used to be an Az. State Senator,said there are many politicians and wealthy people who contribute to politicans campaigns. How nice is that my house may burn,down to bad but we`ll save the fat ass rich bastards.He guaranteed me that`s what happened. :crossx:
It looks like the fire is laying down tonight. I could not see any glowing areas from Hwy 18 up in Lake Arrowhead.
Thermal image site to fire perimeter map (http://geomac.usgs.gov/#)
To put in perspective, the Esperanza fire burned roughly 40000 acres in around 36 hours.
The Day fire which burned for a month burned 150000 acres or 5000 a day average although it did have heavy days at the end, it was also pretty large when that transpired, driven again by Santa Ana winds.
Wind is not the firefighters friend. I hope they catch the shit head that set this. RIP firefighters.
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