A passerby stops at the air tanker museum in Greybull

PB4Y-2

Above: Tanker 127, a PB4Y-2, at the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting, Greybull, WY. Photo by Bill Gabbert.

The classic air tankers parked next to the rest stop on highway 20/14/16 just west of Greybull, Wyoming look incongruous sitting in the weeds. Most people drive on by the Museum of Flight and Aerial Firefighting, but Zach Bowman didn’t — he wrote about the retired Hawkins & Powers aircraft for Yahoo News. Here are some excerpts from his article:

We see them from the road, a scattering of old birds, their fuselages bright under the Wyoming sun. Their liveries are simple. Just a few splashes of blood orange on cowl and wing tip, the rest left to bare and brilliant aluminum. We don’t know what they are, or why they’re so close to the road, nosed up to a rest area like big, gleaming cows at a trough. Brandon comes over the CB:

“Do you want to go back and check it out?”

The answer should be, “No.” We’ve strung a week’s worth of long days together, pushing hard for the west coast, and spent most of the morning tending to necessaries in Ten Sleep. We’re barely an hour down the road, and we’ve got plenty more ground to cover before the day’s over.

“Absolutely,” is what I say.

[…]

Standing there among what’s left, most of it privately owned and on loan to the museum, it’s hard not to feel a pang. For a second, these planes were still in the air. Not parked and rotting. Not cut up for scrap. Working, as they were built to do. Not destroying the world beneath their wide wings, but preserving it. Not taking men’s lives, but buying them precious seconds. Enough to evacuate a home or dig a fire line. Enough to matter.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Steve.

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6 thoughts on “A passerby stops at the air tanker museum in Greybull”

  1. Sad, like visiting a cemetery. Well written. For us who were below the forest canopy struggling to contain a forest fire, you kept listening for the arriving sound of radial engines to be heard, only Cal Fire and the DC 7s remain. With California off to the races again (fires near S.F.) what ever happened with the F.S. C 130 Aerosol 116 that was to be on and available 9-15-16? What would happen if a private contractor failed to show-up?

  2. Thanks Bill, good memories, having worked in the area and with HP. Good people. I was responsible for the WYOMING WILDLIFE: Wyoming’s prehistoric wildlife, sign at the Greybull rest stop that was shown in a previous photo you published. Another fun memory, at least 22 years old and looks like it could be refreshed? We all could be refreshed…eh?

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