Today we learned about two videos that were shot in September as Air Spray was putting their BAe-146 air tanker through the grid test at Fox Field in Southern California. The test involves repeatedly dropping retardant over a grid of hundreds of cups on the ground. The amount in each cup is measured to determine the quantity of retardant and the uniformity of the pattern.
Air Spray has been working on this aircraft since at least March of 2014 when we visited their hangar in Chico, California. At that time the company was hoping to complete the conversion of the airliner into an air tanker by the end of that year. In March of this year they demonstrated it dropping water at the Aerial Firefighting Conference at Sacramento.
The aircraft has an unusual vinyl wrap — a forest scene on the aft section which certainly can’t be mistaken for another air tanker. It remains to be seen if the images of vegetation turn out to be camouflage, making it difficult to be seen by other aircraft when it is flying close to the ground. The “N” number is hard to read (it’s N907AS) but that could be easily fixed.
These videos were shot by VMC Aviation Videos in September at the grid test for Tanker 170. The first one is very unusual, showing four drops on the same screen and then repeats them in slow motion. The other includes a lot of taxiing, but also has several drops.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Marcel.
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Doesn’t look like they are gonna make the higher coverage levels.