SA watches trial of giant waterbomber

[Zippy]

-takeaway the skycrane
-add 4 fixed wings
-add 2 mid-sized helo's
-add a midnorth manned airbase
-add a Upper Murray manned airbase

Ta da!

[jaff]

-takeaway the skycrane


Ta da!

BLASPHEMER.....SAY........3 Hail Marys.. and your absolved of your sin! :-D

[Zippy]

-takeaway the skycrane


Ta da!

BLASPHEMER.....SAY........3 Hail Marys.. and your absolved of your sin! :-D

Ha...never.

[Burnover]

From http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/state-government-to-lease-multi-million-dollar-fire-fighting-jet/story-e6frf7jo-1225795179869

A MULTI-million dollar super water-bomber capable of soaking a 1.2km bushfire in one hit will join our firefighting arsenal this summer.
The water-bombing jet will be able to reach anywhere in Victoria in just 45 minutes, and is being billed as an important weapon in heading off another Black Saturday disaster.

With forecasts of a fierce summer, Premier John Brumby moved quickly to get an Australian-first firefighting jet lease, most likely a modified DC-10 or 747 jumbo carrier.

Police and Emergency Services Minister Bob Cameron told the Herald Sun the aircraft would be one important weapon in fighting fires and protecting Victorians.

"This will be another asset as we leave no stone unturned to help deliver on our goal of making Victoria as fire safe and as fire ready as possible," he said.

[Alex]

Mmmm i wonder if the fire service actually wanted it, and how much it will impact on there budget....

An impressive beast, but hard to think of anything more inaproppriate for Aus firefighting in my personal opinion.

[crashndash]

as has been said before....its all about media spin, photo opportunities and marketing

[pumprescue]

When will the madness end, just start a backburn at Glenelg, it will stop in Darwin somewhere, could use a good cleanout....

[SA Firey]

CFS should concentrate on getting their training courses into shape rather than spending money on more air support. We have all heard the "Lets hail Elvis" our saviour too many times :-P

On a serious note more Air Tractors would be the better option, but so would supporting ground crews with better resources. 

[BlackDog]

Try checking some of the research done by the CSIRO back in the 80's. The concluded that one large bomber would be cost-effective, but that was based on saves on a relatively small number of fires out of the total possible.

This seems a more expensive package.

Bear in mind the drop parameters.
Supposed minimum height is 400'AGL, and the USFS Large Air Tanker project found that they shouldn't be used on country with an overall slope of more than (IIRC)  7 degrees.