the ideal fire/water bomber?

"Bertie the Bunyip" wrote in message
...
"Morgans" wrote in
It can also refill on the ground with a hose and tanker. It can lift
a full load off of a runway, 1200 gallons for a 215, 1400 gallons for
a 415. I would have to do some searching to find out how much runway
it would take, but it isn't much.
Do they still make the -215 as the av book shows it having the PW R2800
recip engines- do they still make those or are they using a reman? Gotta be
a lot more econmical at least from the fuel burn at low altitudes. Pat

Interesting that according to the wiki art on the CL215 that the los
angeles fire dept helped to sink a US manufacturing of the plane. The same
plane that's working down heah now... Pat

Having lived and worked at an airport in the Sierra that CDF staffs with
fire bombers, I used to think that the S2F ("stoof") was the best aircraft.
The stoof re-engined with turbines ("stoot") is an order of magnitude
better.

Jim

--

"If you think you can, or think you can't, you're right."
--Henry Ford

"Private" wrote in message
news:F88Vi.158276$th2.154888@pd7urf3no...

"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"patrick mitchel" wrote in message
...

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
On the other hand, here's a video someone took of a Goodyear blimp
caught in a thunderstorm trying to make headway in turbulent
conditions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERI8_cprgMo

Wow! that was cool!

It ended in a crash, but no fatalities according to the NTSB report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...06X00943&key=1

They were vry lucky, really.

I have a bit more on that airship incident, if you are interested in that
sort of stuff. The following is quoted with permission from Rick Zitarosa
who posted this to the University of Colorado e-mail Airship-List about a
month ago:

"This was the summer 2005 wreck of the STARS AND STRIPES near its home
base at Pompano. The pilot took off with marginal weather
approaching....the only passenger aboard was his BROTHER. Apparently it
was figured he could take his brother up for a spin and get back before
any bad weather affected the flight or field conditions.

He got caught in the storm that radar had pretty-well WARNED him about,
from all appearances he either badly trimmed or outright STALLED the
airship and then it fell down stern first and hit a warehouse.

This particular pilot had already been previously implicated in a mooring
mast deflation accident, from what I'm told (but Goodyear is an outfit
that has always been known to "give the dog TWO BITES" unless the mistake
might be from incredible stupidity or carelessness.)

The ship was lost, though the nearly-new envelope was later repaired at
no small expense. This was the FOURTH Goodyear airship to be wrecked in
FIVE YEARS and there was considerable speculation about the fact that
this spate of accidents had started to occur when many of the Senior LTA
pilots had started to retire and,

a) whether the ship would be replaced AT ALL

b) whether Goodyear might throw in the towel on its "in house" LTA
operation and simply outsource the whole thing to some outfit like
Lightship Group and start flying A-150's on a "wet lease" with the
Goodyear name simply decaled onto the side.

The pilot ended up "grounded" and in a desk job for the duration of the
investigation at the Goodyear Wingfoot Lake facility where other LTA
employees could pass his desk and glare at him daily. The Investigation
Board was not particularly charitable to the pilot's judgement (a couple
of old-time pilots' judgement renderings following review of amateur
video of the situation were downright PROFANE) and the pilot was
eventually "sacked." (Remember, Goodyear originally provided a lot of
pilots into the Navy program of World War II who became senior Reserve
Officers/Instructors and there was always a heavy "Goodyear" stamp on
Navy LTA.. Indeed, many of the postwar Goodyear blimp pilots were former
Navy or trained by former Navy and even a couple of pilots still flying
today remember "learning LTA" in the 70's and 80's from old-time pilots
who were TYRANTS! One of the old Senior pilots had the nickname " Old
Turkey Neck" because he could be simultaneuosly be reprimanding a new
student pilot and still lean his head WAY OUT the car window to bellow at
a ground crewman r" Hey, what the hell you doing with THAT LINE?????")

Am told that he is actually a decent pilot and a HELL OF A NICE GUY, but
as far as Goodyear was concerned he was directly responsible for losing a
$10 million airship and he had to go. He apparently still works in the
LTA industry today....there is something of a limited number of pilots,
particularly in peak months, and Goodyear is not the only game in town.

Have some good video footage of the old N10A AMERICA making a
(successful) emergency landing in a sandstorm in Texas...will try to post
it one of these days."

If you've never read the account of the
Navy's airships you should. The stories of their encounters with CB is
unforgettable reading.

I have several books on my bookshelf that have harrowing (and tragic)
tales of such encounters, including non-U.S. navy ops:

"Sky Ships - A History of the Airship in the United States Navy"
by William F. Althoff,

"The Zeppelin in Combat - A History of the German Naval Airship Division,
1912 - 1918" by Douglas H. Robinson,

"Dr. Eckener's Dream Machine - The Great Zeppelin and the Dawn of Air
Travel" by Douglas Botting.

WhooHoo!

No time to have left the wheels down!

Whatta bullseye drop!

Dave



On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 21:05:25 -0700, Ron wrote:

On Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:40:16 -0300, Dave
wrote:

Probably some of the best vid of the 415 in action!

Dave

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


For some raw news footage of some awesome flying check out:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/...=mpvideosemail


I don't know if this was posted here earlier, but it was sent to me by
my son during the fires here.

Ron

That video almost gave me a heart attack. WOW those pilots earn their
pay.

Is this typical?

Ok, I am in awe.

Is this typical?

On Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:03:23 -0000, EridanMan
wrote:

That video almost gave me a heart attack. WOW those pilots earn their
pay.

Is this typical?

It depends on the approach and surrounding terrain. When the houses
are on a ridge line or flat land, and the fire is close, it seems to
happens more often than not. Of course we never see all the drops on
TV, but the ones we do see are pretty awesome. I've seen helicopters
do a drop flying into a bluff and pull nearly straight up, do a stall
turn and pull out going the other way. Anyone who flies water
dropping aircraft truly earn their money.

Ron

"EridanMan" wrote in message
oups.com...
That video almost gave me a heart attack. WOW those pilots earn their
pay.

Is this typical?

Some may leave a little more clearance, but not much. To get a large amount
of the water on a small fire, you need to get pretty low. They really do
fly like fighter jocks, especially in mountainous areas, in and out of the
canyons. The plane was designed to be highly maneuverable.
--
Jim in NC

Jim Logajan wrote in
:

Bertie the Bunyip wrote:
Jim Logajan wrote:
On the other hand, here's a video someone took of a Goodyear blimp
caught in a thunderstorm trying to make headway in turbulent
conditions:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERI8_cprgMo

Wow! that was cool!

It ended in a crash, but no fatalities according to the NTSB report:

http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...06X00943&key=1

They were vry lucky, really.

I have a bit more on that airship incident, if you are interested in
that sort of stuff. The following is quoted with permission from Rick
Zitarosa who posted this to the University of Colorado e-mail
Airship-List about a month ago:


Have some good video footage of the old N10A AMERICA making a
(successful) emergency landing in a sandstorm in Texas...will try to
post it one of these days."


Like to see it, but haven't got the time to do a lot of airship reading at
the moment.. I read a few years ago, mostly about the USN's operations with
rigids in the thirties.