WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

747 supertanker battles blazes

http://www.abc.net.au/news/photos/2010/ ... site=perth

I know there has been discussion on this topic previously, but thought that this was interesting to see it in operation for real.

Now I want one of those!!

if we had those we wouldnt need fire brigades lol

It is a great tool, however its turn around time is alot greater than a helicopter, requiring a near by airport to take on more water, or a long lake, also they decided against using it in the east as the force behind the water was causing too much damage.

Video of the 747 Supertanker

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

AO11912 wrote:It is a great tool, however its turn around time is alot greater than a helicopter, requiring a near by airport to take on more water, or a long lake, also they decided against using it in the east as the force behind the water was causing too much damage.

It wasn't just damage, but the patterns weren't all that effective. Conditions meant that it couldn't be used in alot of situations as well.
It was quite a bit smaller than the 747, was a DC-10.

There are very few occasions where the ability to lay a nice big long line is better than the agility and turnaround of the smaller aircraft we use here. Good to see it trialled though! The last 5-10 years has seen our aerial capabilities in Australia improve significantly.

So are you saying the use in Isreal is simply a PJ excercise? I am not trying to be smart or offend anyone. It must have some effect in this case as the expense or the time makes it too cost ineffective.

No, saying that it doesn't work too well in Australia.

There are so many factors affecting the suitability. It probably works alot better in some of those other places, and would likely work in conjunction with a large fleet of other aircraft.

For instance the DC-10 required it's own 1 or two aircraft for control, on top of Air Attack controlling the other aircraft working a fire. The larger planes are most effective with retardant from what I've read.

Been watching this a while, I just want to add my two cents.

It's not just the additional spotter and lead in aircraft it requires. I read a paper on air-support in the US and if a helo filling point is nearby, they win hands down on drops per hour, volume per hour, and accuracy. The single engine airtankers are the next most efficient.

An aircrane/Elvis can drop 8000 to 9000L per load. Let's say they have a ten minute turnaround (30 seconds drop, 90 seconds refill, 4 minutes transit each way) that gives you 48,000L or 6 drops an hour. For one of the Sikorsky Fire Kings, that's 24,000L an hour. Working with them over east I reckon 10 minutes is a bit slow, we were normally getting turnaround times of four to six minutes, so that brings it up to closer to 80000+L/hr for the aircrane and 40000+L/hr for the FireKing.

I read on the Evergreen website they reckon they can refill the supertanker in 8 minutes, and I reckon that is a fantastic achievement, but I still wonder how long it would take to turnaround. I'm hoping someone on here would have an idea how quickly you can get a 747 into the pattern, land it, taxi it back to the start of the runway and take off again, but I can't see them getting more than two drops an hour in.

Also read in Victoria that they found that even small fires there were spotting over the retardant lines dropped by the DC-10 airtanker they trialled there.

I still reckon the Supertanker is awesome to watch, but I reckon Evergreen are better at marketing it than it would be at putting out a fire.