New 737 firefighting tanker

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Originally Posted by Old Farang

The problem with an aircraft the size of a DC 10 is the ground equipment required to load it, along with access to the amount of water involved.
The same if using retardant, where do you hold the stuff, and how long is it going to take to position it? This happened several years ago in WA resulting in the loss of life and about 90% of a small town because of a lack of ground facilities.

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bulk water/retardant carrier.
shouldnt be hard. you have a local air support brigade near the airfield. i know how the CFS ones work. not hard at all and works well.

I'm not sure but I think the 737 only did one load yeasterday and that was from Richmond NSW. The VLATs require a good fixed base with facilties like Avalon or Richmond. A 737 can get in and out of places like Mildura (as the Virgin machine did when it ran out of fuel on the taxy way taxing in after landing) but they are not equiped for fast pumping of liquids.
What is the detail of loss of a town in WA due to bad planning/lack of facilities? The 8's Nev has over there along with the 214 Huey's would have very good turn around and the same or more actual load delivery as a VLAT. What VLAT was based in WA?
As usual in a bad season there is not just one fire, in QLD now there are 80 with a lot having no vehicles in attendence. Black Saturday fires were similar with nearly 100 fires all over the state.
The big machines do have their place and when used to advantage are effective, so are the 802's, 212's that are based all over the country doing work that nobody hears about.

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What is the detail of loss of a town in WA due to bad planning/lack of facilities?

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The town was Yarloop and it was several years ago. I cannot recall what fixed wing was either there, or being considered, but the ground facilities, or lack of them, were the problem.

I have not done any aerial fire work, just used to fly helicopters amongst other things. But I grew up in the bush, my late Father was a local bushfire brigade captain, and I am well versed in what fires can do. It should be remembered that any aerial tanker is there to back up the ground crews, their function is not to extinguish fires per se. And helicopter's are much more flexible in what they can achieve.

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Originally Posted by Fourgearsticks

A 737 can get in and out of places like Mildura (as the Virgin machine did when it ran out of fuel on the taxy way taxing in after landing).......

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Sorry, the aircraft did NOT run out of fuel on the taxiway. They landed in a critical fuel state without statutory reserves [emoji4] (approx 15 mins).

I operate the 7/800 NG into Mildura (and other regional airports). It can easily work out of such places in the high 60T weights.

With a max ZFW of around 60T (assuming a fully loaded fire fighting aircraft gets to 60T), you could carry a couple of hours fuel plus reserves.

I might have been zadgerating slightly [biggrin] What is the CASA approved reserve now 10 minutes 27 seconds [tonguewink]

Photos on Facebook of the 737 in action over Stanwell and Kabra fire, search Facebook for ashjo photography has great photos
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...62053d9fd1.jpg

Great picture.

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Originally Posted by defender90

Photos on Facebook of the 737 in action over Stanwell and Labrador fire, search Facebook for ashjo photography has great photos
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...62053d9fd1.jpg

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Wow...I just looked at the Facebook page, right time right spot to capture the entire dump...50+ pics

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Originally Posted by weeds

Wow...I just looked at the Facebook page, right time right spot to capture the entire dump...50+ pics

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Yes they did an awesome job of capturing it in action

Saw it on the TV news tonight too.