Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Aircraft and Vehicles => Topic started by: Widewing on August 17, 2012, 07:09:52 PM
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This is a spectacular photo of what looks to be a recycled DC-10, now a fire bomber....
(http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/TWIP-120816/twip_120816-11.ss_full.jpg)
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Very nice! Love how you can see him kicking hard rudder
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:aok
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Very nice! Love how you can see him kicking hard rudder
'cept he isn't using rudder. Look at the top...it's aligned with the fin.
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My wife saw Tanker 10 as we drove through Tehachapi. See said "Isn't that kind of low?" In fact, according to news reports, it had just barely cleared the ridgeline and had actually clipped a tree. That had to be a scary ride. The little chaser plane followed it while it dumped the rest of its load at altitude.. guess it was checking for damage (although the news photo showed very minor damage, so maybe it only clipped the very top of a tree).
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'cept he isn't using rudder. Look at the top...it's aligned with the fin.
DOH! Wierd angle, you're right, can I have some herp with my derp?
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This is a spectacular photo of what looks to be a recycled DC-10, now a fire bomber....
(http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/TWIP-120816/twip_120816-11.ss_full.jpg)
Indeed it is. I read an article on it a few months back - pretty interesting (I tried finding it with no luck). It is owned by an independent company, IIRC, and goes where ever a specific fire department/town, etc wants to pay to take it.
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Very nice! Love how you can see him kicking hard rudder
Did you notice the leading edge of the wing?
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Did you notice the leading edge of the wing?
Those are leading edge slats.
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'cept he isn't using rudder. Look at the top...it's aligned with the fin.
Actually, the rudder isn't a single slab on the DC10, there are an upper and lower segment with the split about halfway up. The bottom segment is deflected a bit to the right, you can see a slight discontinuity if you look at the trailing edge line.
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Those are leading edge slats.
Yes Mace, that is why I asked if RedBull noticed them.
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Is the photo rotated, or did it actually drop its load in a ~ 45 degree bank ?
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Holy crap, that thing has to hold a TON of chemical. Awesome. :rock
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why use a commercial jet for fire fighting? The high stall speed, wing loading should make it a bad plane choice?
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why use a commercial jet for fire fighting? The high stall speed, wing loading should make it a bad plane choice?
Because some of our forest fires are almost bigger than 674,800 kmē (which is the size of France, BTW) :neener:
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Because some of our forest fires are almost bigger than 674,800 kmē (which is the size of France, BTW) :neener:
If you can't drop the water precisely nor reload in flight at the nearby lake your fire will stay the size of France. BTW that was almost funny, good try.
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If you can't drop the water precisely nor reload in flight at the nearby lake your fire will stay the size of France. BTW that was almost funny, good try.
Where in the photo is the plane dropping water?
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Where in the photo is the plane dropping water?
I assume this is a mix of chemicals and water?
(http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/TWIP-120816/twip_120816-11.ss_full.jpg)
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I assume this is a mix of chemicals and water?
(http://msnbcmedia3.msn.com/j/MSNBC/Components/Slideshows/_production/TWIP-120816/twip_120816-11.ss_full.jpg)
Not always.
http://www.10tanker.com/general/ (http://www.10tanker.com/general/)
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Beyond the refueling ability it's still a plane made to cruise at near mach speed at high altitude, hardly your typical deck fire fighter. To be precise the drop has to be made very low, sometimes in mountainous areas...
I guess the bigger load/range is worth the troubles.
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If you can't drop the water precisely nor reload in flight at the nearby lake your fire will stay the size of France. BTW that was almost funny, good try.
This is Murrica, we dont have to be precise just throw enough of whatever at the problem and it will eventually go away besides doesnt look like they have a problem hitting the target on tv.
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Here's the article I mentioned above:
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2012/may/f_aerial-firefighters.html (http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2012/may/f_aerial-firefighters.html)
It mentions why the DC-10 is a good platform (speed, payload, stable, etc)
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This is Murrica, we dont have to be precise just throw enough of whatever at the problem and it will eventually go away besides doesnt look like they have a problem hitting the target on tv.
:rofl
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Here's the article I mentioned above:
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2012/may/f_aerial-firefighters.html (http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2012/may/f_aerial-firefighters.html)
It mentions why the DC-10 is a good platform (speed, payload, stable, etc)
cool thanks I must have missed that.
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Here's the article I mentioned above:
http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2012/may/f_aerial-firefighters.html (http://www.aopa.org/members/files/pilot/2012/may/f_aerial-firefighters.html)
It mentions why the DC-10 is a good platform (speed, payload, stable, etc)
Another reason is that fatigue life DC-10 is several orders of magnitude larger than that of the World War II or Korean War assets we currently have. The wing is extremely efficient low-speed and high alpha. And quite frankly it's built like a brick toejam house
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If you can't drop the water precisely nor reload in flight at the nearby lake your fire will stay the size of France. BTW that was almost funny, good try.
Water...
(http://www.10tanker.com/wp-content/gallery/dc10/Test%20Drop.jpg)
Chemical...
(http://www.10tanker.com/wp-content/gallery/dc10/10%20Tanker%20Drop.jpg)
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from the link Buster provided
and the liquid that fell from the airplane was white, not dyed red (retardant foam or gel is mixed with water so that it clings to foliage and other fuels longer; plain water evaporates quickly but some retardants can persist as long as 30 days).
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We do have forests the size of France here. Actually we have forests that are bigger than France.
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We do have forests the size of France here. Actually we have forests that are bigger than France.
I know, I studied geography at school, and went to the USA and Canada.
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We do have forests the size of France here. Actually we have forests that are bigger than France.
He knows, he just wasn't amused.
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from the link Buster provided
The article also points out that it was a training run which explains why they were using water at the time.
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I hear the DC-10 was a pilot's plane. I remember talking to a few guys who had flown it, and they loved it.
The aircraft can be loaded with fire fighting liquids in "as little as eight minutes" WOW!
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wouldnt it be cheaper to control burn any areas predicted to be at risk?
If only you guys had some kind of vehicle that could deliver large amounts of incendiary devices accurately from the air. and lots of them ... ;)
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wouldnt it be cheaper to control burn any areas predicted to be at risk?
If only you guys had some kind of vehicle that could deliver large amounts of incendiary devices accurately from the air. and lots of them ... ;)
We mount them on the roofs of apartment buildings. :aok
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:D
I was thinking Buffs - how many you got operational or on standby? Like Arclight but with incediaries designed for controlled burn would create quite an effective firebreak. cheap too, way under $1/lb I imagine.
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:D
I was thinking Buffs - how many you got operational or on standby? Like Arclight but with incediaries designed for controlled burn would create quite an effective firebreak. cheap too, way under $1/lb I imagine.
Glad you have a sense of humor :aok
I know that in some instances, controlled burns get OUT of control. I have never experienced the Santa Ana winds in California , but I hear they can turn a campfire into a conflagration in short order.
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The natural cycle of fire helps the forest by clearing the dead wood and brush but we have altered that cycle by putting fires out. Now when they get out of control they have plenty of fuel.
The DC-10 is a good plane with decent engines. I remember fueling them at ACY in the early 80's. :aok
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I heard the last forest fire in France was on the German border.....it Surrendered when the German firefighters showed up :O :bolt:
Another good shot
(http://img.ibtimes.com/www/data/images/full/2012/08/17/297305-roaring-wildfire-ravage-western-u-s-states-photos.jpg)
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If you can't drop the water precisely nor reload in flight at the nearby lake your fire will stay the size of France. BTW that was almost funny, good try.
It actually drops fire retardent/chemicals infront of the path of a fire. When fighting a fire the size of France, it is much easier (and a lot safer) to utilise an army of resources to contain it and let it burn itself out rather than utterly defeat it.
It's size and range and payload enable it to fly very long distances into rural areas and drop precisely a very long long line of retardent, essentialy creating instantly a seamless defencive line stretching nearly a mile in otherwise inaccessable terrain.
There are other aircraft that I think are more impressive, think medium sized (well, large for a sea plane) and capable of skimming a large body of water to rapidly refill tons of water, then flying to drop it and imediatley repeating the process. If weather and conditions are right, they can have a serious impact. That is their downside though to something like the DC-10 though, they cost more for maintenance and need good weather and conditions to rapidly refuel off water surfaces.
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60,000-pound loads of water and fire retardant
(http://planesandchoppers.com.s3.amazonaws.com/1565.jpg)
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Think that is the last one of the four they started with. Saw a very impressive video of it being preflighted. The flight engineer climbed out
onto the horizontal stab to use a DOOR built into the verticle stab to inspect it. That and the seemingly miles long flight deck were very
memorable.
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Could an airship with a hose connected with a pumping station on ground be developed? So it could spray continuously from air... airplanes carrying water look so inefficient.
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Could an airship with a hose connected with a pumping station on ground be developed? So it could spray continuously from air... airplanes carrying water look so inefficient.
Considering the turbulence over a fire an airship is the last thing I'd want to be in.
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Think that is the last one of the four they started with. Saw a very impressive video of it being preflighted. The flight engineer climbed out onto the horizontal stab to use a DOOR built into the verticle stab to inspect it. That and the seemingly miles long flight deck were very memorable.
I believe the Mars was featured in one of the Great Planes show. The a/c was vandalized just recently, http://www.bclocalnews.com/news/165337196.html
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God bless the guys...working hard & dangerous all around boisterous right now...they're trying hard to save Featherville right now. Its one of the best Atv/snowmobiling areas in Idaho &Anderson Ranch d :prayam has the best Kokanee fishing I know of. :pray :rock
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Considering the turbulence over a fire an airship is the last thing I'd want to be in.
They would be unmanned :D. Maybe they could be anchored to the ground in some way, big bags of water connected to the ship... in my imagination.
Actually I found a project of a firefighting airship, different to my "idea" though:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2425-gigantic-airships-aim-to-damp-forest-fires.html
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Many of the old airships used water as ballast. Dropping 440,000lb (220ton) of water, yeah right.
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That thing was flying out of Austin when we had the Bastrop fire last year.
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wouldnt it be cheaper to control burn any areas predicted to be at risk?
If only you guys had some kind of vehicle that could deliver large amounts of incendiary devices accurately from the air. and lots of them ... ;)
A few years back they considered a project using an A-10 for a water bomber, before it got started they found other uses for the Warthog.
Maybe a mini-me version like this OV-10? :D
(http://www.richard-seaman.com/Wallpaper/Aircraft/Civil/Bronco2oClock.jpg)
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:aok Yea! OV-10...THEY LOVED THEM BACK IN THE DAY. :salute
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Glad you have a sense of humor :aok
I know that in some instances, controlled burns get OUT of control. I have never experienced the Santa Ana winds in California , but I hear they can turn a campfire into a conflagration in short order.
Yes! There's alot of work goes into a controlled burn...it ain't random by no means!! plus the bunny huggers scream & cry about controlled burns after demanding that forest fires are a natural part of the ecology... :rolleyes: "I want my cake 7 eat it too" :old:
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I live in a state ravaged by many fires, over many years. Controlled burns are just as much a risk as fires. Because they ARE fires. It still takes a lot of time and manpower and MONEY and equipment to put out the controlled burns and watch them. If you've exhausted your budget battling real fires, maybe you can't afford that kind of luxury... but mostly I think it's just asking for it to start the fires on purpose. It's very rare you hear about a controlled burn these days. My $0.02.
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its not the same though is it - controlled burns are done when the conditions are right for the effect you want to achieve, not at the height of a heat wave when it will escalate into a fullblown runaway wildfire. thats why you need accelerants and extra fuel for controlled burn, because the conditions wont allow fires without them. and they are only really needed near urban areas and where agriculture has reduced the size of bush or forests so much that they cant recover on their own.
most ecologies in the wildfire zones have adapted to deal with wildfires in one way or another, many depend on them. it may not look pretty to us for a few decades but its usually a normal and healthy part of the cycle. most wildfires happen without us even noticing and always have but the ecologies in those areas keep on truckin as healthy as ever.
edit: I've seen one small wildfire from start to finish, it was very cool to witness. was watching a nightime storm and then a coupla lightning bolts hit the top of a mountain about 10miles away and a big patch of trees just went up like in Rollerblade. you could see the front moving out from the centre fast, then slowing. watched it burn for a coupla hours and went to bed. it was still going in the morning and was smoldering by that evening. must have torched 20-50sqm of the mountain side before it stopped. all the other tourists were going crazy about putting it out, the locals just shrugged :D
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I don't know all that much about the requirements of controlled burns and the policy around them, but I do know that the comment made higher in this thread about "make controlled burns where there's a lot of dead stuff" -- it doesn't hold up all the time. Most times the forest fires that rage out of control are in the middle of healthy forests. It wouldn't do to burn down healthy stock, especially in large sections. Those trees actively hold the soil in place and prevent massive erosion and flash flooding.
I still think that controlled burns are the last resort, for that and similar reasons.
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controlled burn just removes the light fuel lying around on the ground, not the trees. its like building a camp fire with damp logs - the kindling all burns but the logs wont catch. by the time the logs have dried enough to light, theres no kindling because you already burnt it, and you cant light even a dry log with a match.
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'cept he isn't using rudder. Look at the top...it's aligned with the fin.
Rudder is being used, look closer.
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controlled burn just removes the light fuel lying around on the ground, not the trees. its like building a camp fire with damp logs - the kindling all burns but the logs wont catch. by the time the logs have dried enough to light, theres no kindling because you already burnt it, and you cant light even a dry log with a match.
This is the perfect conditions desired effect....& only that. :salute
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'mercia
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wouldnt it be cheaper to control burn any areas predicted to be at risk?
If only you guys had some kind of vehicle that could deliver large amounts of incendiary devices accurately from the air. and lots of them ... ;)
http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Town-s-Fears-Come-True-Lewiston-worried-that-a-2919692.php
http://cdfdata.fire.ca.gov/incidents/incidents_details_info?incident_id=360
Just one recent example that I'm very familiar with. Good thing the state had to write off the costliest man-made/caused fire in that county's history because their own employees caused it.
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The OV-10 Bronco is actually used for fire spotting. It flies along in front of the water bomber and designates where the bomber should drop the water or fire retardant. I've talked to pilots who fly the Bronco and they say it's a wonderful platform for spotting. Great visibility and stable. I think it would be a blast to fly. Maybe someday.....
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The OV-10 Bronco is actually used for fire spotting. It flies along in front of the water bomber and designates where the bomber should drop the water or fire retardant. I've talked to pilots who fly the Bronco and they say it's a wonderful platform for spotting. Great visibility and stable. I think it would be a blast to fly. Maybe someday.....
For probably the same reasons they loved it for close air support. :salute