WA Radio Scanner Users' Group

Bomber 605



Bomber 608



608`s Office

Nice shots... well done!

Very Nice Always RX

Nice pics dude...

Sweet!! lucky!

Wow, great shots! It would be so awesome to be in them while flying, shame their not a twin cockpit

Are the water bombers reloaded whilst running or do they shut them down?

Cheers

Are the water bombers reloaded whilst running or do they shut them down?

Cheers

rambler318 wrote:Are the water bombers reloaded whilst running or do they shut them down?

Cheers

They shutdown completley - refuel takes place (retardent) then start and take off within 5mins... and ATC usually gives these Birds priority to takeoff...

How much water can they carry? Cause to have to land, stop, switch off and boot up and take off again every time, they must be able to carry a good load to be worth while?

The aircraft in the pics carry 3150 litres of water/retardant. VH-EDG is actually a two seat aircraft too , but normally the second seat is for training and ferry purposes only.

You won't see them using retardant. Retardant has to be carefully pre-mixed into the water in a tanker - DEC only has one of these and it is based down south (Collie or Manjimup I believe). The stuff is mega expensive and mega messy. It was used earlier this year at Lake Carabooda and last year at Lake Neerabup, though these were both special cases.

What they do use, is BFFF (Bush Fire Fighting Foam) which is essentially a wetting agent. This can be injected/mixed in the air so the pilot can decide based on instructions whether to apply foam or not. They can also do a split load and dump 1/2 of the load in one spot and 1/2 in another.


Also, all of the bombers have callsigns starting with '6', as do the Helitac's and Police Aircraft... I was lead to believe this is used to denote an emergency aircraft and is supposed to give priority clearance .. can someone confirm this?

Fastlane wrote:Also, all of the bombers have callsigns starting with '6', as do the Helitac's and Police Aircraft... I was lead to believe this is used to denote an emergency aircraft and is supposed to give priority clearance .. can someone confirm this?

Not sure on clearance but 6 means it's in W.A. (eg post code) The Helitacs change callsign to 4** when they go to Queensland, in SA the aircraft are 5** etc.

WPXZBP wrote:

Fastlane wrote:Also, all of the bombers have callsigns starting with '6', as do the Helitac's and Police Aircraft... I was lead to believe this is used to denote an emergency aircraft and is supposed to give priority clearance .. can someone confirm this?

Not sure on clearance but 6 means it's in W.A. (eg post code) The Helitacs change callsign to 4** when they go to Queensland, in SA the aircraft are 5** etc.

Fair enough! Just know a few years ago they changed from calling themselves Bomber 1,2 etc to Bomber 601, 602... that was how one person explained the change.