Victoria’s aerial firefighting fleet gears up for the down-under summer

Like New South Wales, Victoria is getting their firefighting aircraft lined up for the 2016-2017 Australian bushfire season which is getting underway now.

A year ago between Victoria and New South Wales the two states had four large air tankers from North America on contract during their summer; two C-130’s, a DC-10, and an RJ85. It appears the arrangements will be very similar this summer.

From Victoria’s Country Fire Service:

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“This year, Victoria will have 48 aircraft available, including five aircraft that have been strategically positioned to support harvesting operations in the Mallee.

Forest Fire Management Victoria Chief Fire Officer Stephanie Rotarangi said: “The first aircraft to come on board this year are the Helitack fire-fighting helicopter at Sea Lake and two single engine air tanker fixed-wing planes at Ouyen, which start today.”

“Another two single engine air tankers will be based at Nhill from November 23. This is the first time this service has been provided at Ouyen and Nhill to support cropping in the north west and west of the state.

“The Bushfire Natural Hazards CRC Seasonal Outlook has predicted an above average fire season for Victoria in 2016-17. The recent rainfall means we can expect increased grass growth and high-yielding crops, particularly in areas like the Mallee.”

The five aircraft will be on pre-determined dispatch which means they are able to respond to fires at the same time as fire trucks do.

CFA Chief Officer Steve Warrington said rapid response in the early stages helps to keep small fires small.

“This summer, we are expanding predetermined dispatch to include another five aircraft to cover Ballarat, Mornington Peninsula, Olinda, Heyfield and Ovens. This means for the 2016-17 season Victoria will have 27 aircraft at 19 locations on immediate response,” he said.

“Victoria’s specialised aircraft fleet is strategically positioned across the state so it is available for a range of different types of fires and terrain to provide the best support possible to our firefighters.”

Tankers 131 132 fire Victoria
Tankers 131 and 132, both on contract in Victoria, February, 2016. T-132 had been on contract earlier with New South Wales; when the contract ended, Victoria picked up the aircraft for the remainder of the Australian summer.  Coulson photo.

Victoria’s aircraft fleet this season will include: 2 Large Air Tankers, 2 Air-Cranes, 27 aircraft on pre-determined dispatch including 2 Sikorsky helicopters and 1 water scooping aircraft,  14 aircraft to provide air attack supervision and reconnaissance, 1 dedicated air intelligence helicopter and 2 infrared line-scanning aircraft.

Major fire operations will be supported by the two Large Air Tankers (LATs), Hercules and RJ which will be based at Avalon Airport and the two air-cranes, Malcolm and Ichabod

The LATs are some of the biggest firefighting aircraft in the world and can hold between 12,000 and 15,000 litres of water, retardant or foam.”

Tankers 910 and 132 respond to fires in New South Wales

Air Tanker 910, the DC-10 that arrived in Australia October 30, responded to a wildfire that was within sight of where it is based at the Royal Australian Air Force Base in Richmond (map), 40 miles west of Sydney, Australia. It is working on a contract with New South Wales during their summer bushfire season.

10 Tanker Air Carrier published the above photo on their Facebook page, with the caption:

This is a picture of our first fire in Australia this year. We were asked to fly two missions on the fire, taking a total of less than 30 minutes of flight time. We hear about fires right off the end of the runway all the time….but they don’t get much closer than this.

Below is a slow-motion video of T-910 dropping, posted on the Facebook page of the Wallacia Rural Fire Brigade November 4, 2016 (U.S. time).

The photo below was posted on Facebook by the Wallacia Rural Fire Brigade. Coulson’s Tanker 132, an L-382G, started its contract in New South Wales on September 6, 2016.

tanker 132
Tanker 132 drops on the Llandilo bushfire in Australia, November 4, 2016 (U.S. time) Photo by Wallacia Rural Fire Brigade.

P2V gets stuck in the muddy prairie near Greybull, WY

In moving a retired P2V aircraft from the boneyard area at the Greybull, Wyoming airport to the nearby air tanker museum, it got stuck in the soft ground last weekend. Their plans are to let it sit there until either the soil dries out or the ground freezes.

More information about this new addition to the museum.

Tanker 910 arrives in Australia

The DC-10 will be down under for the New South Wales bushfire season.

Above: Air Tanker 910 just after landing at RAAF Richmond in New South Wales, Australia, October 30, 2016 (U.S. time). Photo by Bernie Proctor.

Tanker 910, one of the three DC-10s operated by 10 Tanker Air Carrier, landed in Richmond, New South Wales, Australia (map) on Sunday (U.S. time) to begin a contract during their summer bushfire season. During this second year of its contract, the 11,600-gallon aircraft will again be based at the Royal Australian Air Force Base in Richmond, 40 miles west of Sydney.

Sunday was the last day of Tanker 911’s contract with the U.S. Forest Service. It had been on standby in San Bernardino for the last two weeks. Tanker 912 continues with its CAL FIRE contract based at McClellan Air Field in Sacramento.

Coulson’s Tanker 132, an L-382G, started its contract in New South Wales  on September 6, 2016.

Agreement sought to manufacture Be-200 air tankers in California

The aircraft would be manufactured in Santa Maria, California.

A businessman in Santa Maria, California, who has long been interested in the Russian-made Be-200 scooping air tanker, is pursuing still another avenue to use the aircraft in the United States.

David Baskett is the director of Santa Maria’s airport, president of TTE International, and is associated with International Emergency Services (IES).  Campaigning for years to import the 3,000-gallon Be-200 air tanker, in 2010 he arranged for one of the aircraft to visit the United States. It was on display at Santa Maria, California and made a demonstration water drop. Mr. Baskett said then that his plan was to purchase 10 of the aircraft and lease them to air tanker operators in the United States.

Be-200ES
A Be-200ES rolls out for the public while another makes a demonstration water drop. May 30, 2016 at the Beriev factory in Taganrog, Russia.

Now he says he is working with the Beriev Aircraft Company (that makes the aircraft), Global Seaplanes, and Airbus to manufacture the aircraft in Santa Maria. He hopes that the air tanker will receive FAA certification.

Several years ago some U.S. Forest Service employees traveled to Taganrog, Russia the home base of the Beriev company, to conduct tests to determine if the Be-200 could be approved by the Interagency AirTanker Board (IAB). At the time, we heard unofficial reports that it met the criteria for water-scooping air tankers, but tests were not completed for dropping fire retardant.

This is not the first announcement that the Be-200 would be manufactured in the United States. In 2014 USA Firefighting Air Corps (USAFAC) said they signed a collaboration agreement with IES to produce the Be-200 in Colorado. USAFAC co-founder Chris Olson told the Colorado Wildfire Matters Review Committee that the company was in discussions with international financiers to back the initiative’s $500 million proposition.

USAFAC at the same time was proposing to convert the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt into an air tanker.

Air tanker museum to get a P2V


I talked with Bob Hawkins yesterday about the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting which is located at Greybull, Wyoming. It turns out that he is a director of the museum.

He said this P2V-7 at one time belonged to Hawkins and Powers but was auctioned off when the company went out of business. It was given to the museum by Richard Camp who is the head of the “Save a Neptune” organization. This aircraft was never converted into an air tanker, but Bob hopes to get one someday that actually was an air tanker.

(I was thinking that Neptune Aviation or Minden might have something sitting around.)

Some of you may know Bob. He was the “Hawkins” in “Hawkins and Powers” that operated air tankers out of the Greybull Airport. Now he’s flying helicopters for Sky Aviation in Worland, Wyoming.

Articles on Fire Aviation about the museum.

Australians look at how large air tankers are used in the United States

Australian fire managers have been studying the use of air tankers, increasingly so in the last two years. They are on the second year of contracting to use a large air tanker and a very large air tanker during their summer bushfire season. And recently some of the aussies have traveled across the equator to see how the aircraft are used in North America.

Neptune acquires their eighth BAe-146

neptune BAe-146
Neptune’s eighth BAe-146 arrives at Missoula September 29, 2016. Photo by Bill Moss.

One of the major winter projects at Neptune Aviation will be converting their eighth BAe-146 airliner into an air tanker. Aircraft N477NA arrived in Missoula September 29 after flying across the Atlantic via Reykjavik International Airport in Iceland.

Bill Moss, who took these photos, told us that the aircraft’s previous registration identifier was LA-HBZ and it had been flying for Bulgaria Air for the last five years. It has served with 10 different operators since its first commercial flight in 1988 for American Airlines.

Dan Snyder, Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Neptune Aviation, said they are not certain what the aircraft’s tanker number will be, but they are considering Tanker 15. (Update November 22, 2016: it is confirmed to be Tanker 15.)

neptune BAe-146
Neptune’s eighth BAe-146 arrives at Missoula September 29, 2016. Photo by Bill Moss.

As the fire season in the west winds down, Mr. Snyder said two of their air tankers were released yesterday for the year but they still have seven operating for the U.S. Forest Service and one with CAL FIRE. All of their P2V’s will be migrating to their maintenance facility in Alamogordo, New Mexico which has a winter climate much more friendly to radial engines than Missoula.

Another long term project Neptune is working on is performing some of the work on the C-23B Sherpa aircraft the USFS got from the US Army to convert them to civilian SD3-60 certificates. They are usually working on one or two of the planes at a time, Mr. Snyder said, and will continue that project at least through 2017.

“That really is going to depend on the contract situation”, Mr. Snyder said when we asked if they plan to acquire any more BAe-146’s. “The Next-Gen 3.0 contract is supposedly going to be released sometime in the latter portion of this year or the first of next year. And that will greatly dictate what we do as a company, depending on how many line items they decide to release and what that situation looks like from a contracting standpoint.”