Thread: Harvey Fires back on.

Perth Airport is full,there arent spare runways for casual use,planes line up on the tarmac to take off.Pearce Airbase,very difficult to get permission to use that,its an airforce thing.
They may both have scheme water,but no infrastructure to bulk fill a plane with water in a hurry.
The helitacs are much more precise in the delivery of their hit.If this plane is so good why do fires get away over east????
Andrew

Without denigrating others, our WA firefighters (volunteers and particularly professionals) are the equal of any anywhere, specifically including expertise in a wide range of firefighting options. They keep up with all the latest trends (apart from the many they initiate) and do a fantastic job. I've worked with a number of the professionals before I retired and was amazed at their breadth and depth of knowledge and expertise. You only have to look at some of the professional papers created to realize they are no dummies. No I don't need to be reminded of situations that have recently arisen - I defy anyone to get on the ground (or in the air) and do much better.

Originally Posted by LandyAndy

Perth Airport is full,there arent spare runways for casual use,planes line up on the tarmac to take off.Pearce Airbase,very difficult to get permission to use that,its an airforce thing.
They may both have scheme water,but no infrastructure to bulk fill a plane with water in a hurry.
The helitacs are much more precise in the delivery of their hit.If this plane is so good why do fires get away over east????
Andrew

you dont need a spare runway, you fit it in among commercial traffic.
and when the dc10 is in adelaide, it uses the raaf base here.
all of these things are prearranged anyways.

the dc10 brings the gear over with it.

you think the helitacs are good... wait til you guys get air tractors. 10 times bettter.

Originally Posted by Eevo

you dont need a spare runway, you fit it in among commercial traffic.
and when the dc10 is in adelaide, it uses the raaf base here.
all of these things are prearranged anyways.

the dc10 brings the gear over with it.

you think the helitacs are good... wait til you guys get air tractors. 10 times bettter.

What Andy means is there are no available landing slots at Perth Airport most weekdays. Operating an Air Support aircraft out of Perth would play havoc with commercial scheduling. At a guess Pearce RAAF base would add another 20-30mins to the turnaround time.

We use Air Tractors in WA. There are 2 based in Bunbury each summer.

Originally Posted by cjc_td5

What Andy means is there are no available landing slots at Perth Airport most weekdays. Operating an Air Support aircraft out of Perth would play havoc with commercial scheduling. At a guess Pearce RAAF base would add another 20-30mins to the turnaround time.

We use Air Tractors in WA. There are 2 based in Bunbury each summer.

i couldnt care less about commercial scheduling when there is a bushfire burning whole towns.

20-30min turn around time is nothing.
sometimes the dc10 flies takes off from melb to dump water in adelaide and lands in melb again.

how many tractors does WA have total?
we have about 10 in SA.

Absolutely,who gives a stuff if a bunch of bogans can't get to Bali,if towns are burning down all air traffic stops when the tanker arrives. Pat

Western Australia has 8 Air Tractors on contract for Fire Suppression, with another available as required but not contracted. All of these Air Tractors are the 802 model which hold 800 Gallons.
The Operator and Pilots of these aircraft, do a great job and have been very effective over the years in accurately dropping a good load of water on a fire. Particularly, as they are often the first to arrive.

There are 6 Bell 214B Helitaks that can drop approximately 2700 litres of water. Four of these are based at Jandakot, with the other 2 being in Busselton.
All aircraft can be redeployed from their base to assist with fires in other areas.
There is also a Skycrane available, which is based at the Serpentine Airfield, South of Jandakot.
The Helitaks and Skycrane are very effective on a fire as well, particularly if they have water close by.

Pearce Airbase is used as a refill point for the Air Tractors and has an agreement with DFES and DPAW to be used when there is a fire. Pearce is only 16 Nm North of Perth Airport, so is the more convenient of the airports to use. Perth airport is not set up for the refilling of fire fighting aircraft, as well as a constant flow of Jet Aircraft.

In 2015 Pearce airbase was utilised during the Northcliffe fires as the base for the Bae 146 fire fighting aircraft that came over. Although this was dropping retardant at the time, which is delivered to the aircraft in bulk from a semi. I am not sure if Pearce has the facilities to refill a large tanker with water, as is done with the Air Tractors. Particularly as the location of the hydrants may not have a suitable pavement strength for a loaded tanker.

One thing I have noted in the last couple of years in Perth, is that the fires seem to be much more intense than previous years.

Greg

We just had a really big one in Tassie held 15000 litres of supresent.
Very effective brings all its own infrastructure.
I heard the pilot interviewed on radio.

Cheers