Refurbed Blackhawks fight fires

[Pedro_The_Swift]

Lockheed Martin * World-first refurbishment of Black Hawk helicopters for firefighting and disaster relief in Australia under new agreement (http://www.lockheedmartin.com.au/au/news/press-releases/2017/28072017.html?linkId=100000000671789)


so how much can a blackhawk carry?
and does this mean Elvis has left the building?[bigwhistle]

[Fourgearsticks]

At a guess I would say useful sling load would be up to 3000 litres, that is under ideal conditions. The load of "Elvis" is quoted as being 9000 litres, that is of the most powerful of the sky cranes. A normal working summer fire load would be 6000 litres.
It costs roughly 25k an hour to have a Skycrane on contract, would be guessing at maybe 15k for a civil Blackhawk and around 8 to 10k for Huey/212/205.
All horses for coarses really, there are times when all can be used, each has strong points for operations, the same as fixed wing from 802s to DC10. If all these aircraft are used to their strengths it works well. Longer haul, no surface water, fixed wings work better, close quarters plentiful standing water, rotary shine.
I see in your linked article there will be actually Lockheed factory involvement, all the jobs they quote will be taken from outfits already operating here. There was a private Blackhawk operating on fires in NSW last summer, based from Scone I believe.
The likes of a Qld company that has over a dozen medium helicopters on contract all over Australia would suffer badly if a big outfit like the one described in your link starts operations. Thinking out aloud I wonder if there is any US government involvement with the "Export enhancement scheme"?