Saw video footage of .............

[RAF_Quantum]

.............one of these on the news this morning dropping it's load on the Californian fires currently raging.

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0860362/L

Never seen one before or knew they existed but it looked very impressive.

Rgds

John

[DaveB]

Aint that typical. From the land where everything is bigger, you'd hardly expect anything else would you!

Btw.. I'd not seen one before either John ;-)

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

You could always use one of these

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfCwChAg6lE

Garry

[Nigel H-J]

That photo and the video reminds me of the song......Anything you can do I can do............!!!!

Just how long does it take to load them up with water?

:think: Nigel

[DaveB]

And Arnie would be flying it too!

ATB

DaveB :tab:

[Garry Russell]

Just how long does it take to load them up with water?

:think: Nigel

Maybe the fire will be out by the time they've got it loaded

Garry

[Nigel H-J]

Maybe the fire will be out by the time they've got it loaded

[Chris Trott]

Well, since the Martin Mars' can't fly south of the border anymore, we have to have something capable of dropping that amount of water and retardant.

Fill time on the DC-10ST isn't actually all that long. Bigger pipe and dual-fill capability has been great because you can load the whole DC-10 in the time it took to load a single C-130A Fire Bomber which only had a single fill port. They've proven their worth several times now in the initial attack role because, much like the Mars, the DC-10ST can put out a just started fire on its own because of that massive tank capacity.

[DispatchDragon]

Chris

For what its worth - talking to my next door neighbor who just left to go down to SAN with a USFS Huey - the DC10 is
presently making 8 to 10 drops a day - and in the begining when it was gusting up to 100mph in the canyons down there
it was the only aircraft capable of making drops - Hope they get a handle on it soon they are now reporting 500 Square miles
on fire and the Pendleton, Witch and Arrowhead fires look like they may merge in the next 24 hours - a really nasty
situation - having lived in La Mesa I was horrified to see the shots of the fires coming uphill from El Cajon.

Leif

[Garry Russell]

Video here

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1a7_1193165376

Garry