Cal Fire training at Ramona with one of their C-130s

[Larry Kraus]

This was just out today on the Fire Aviation website.

https://fireaviation.com/2022/02/07/c-1 ... -training/

E9B2468C-EAC2-4A0A-A433-D7A65C862459 by tanker622001, on Flickr

352F83A0-B689-4A94-8D45-72D5D09C61E7 by tanker622001, on Flickr

54030D2F-1AFB-4AD5-9AE2-7B91918A3083 by tanker622001, on Flickr

A5886343-6DCA-4ECC-9B2A-48DB15EB203B by tanker622001, on Flickr

9415C961-8013-43DD-9A30-BC1E649DF81F by tanker622001, on Flickr

Ramona which is near San Diego has a short runway and is surrounded by higher terrain. The runway has been extended to 5100 feet from the 4000 feet that I had to play with the last time I was there with B-17 Tanker 65 in 1982. A hot day with no wind made take-offs and landings pretty marginal and definitely no fun. The last picture is from T65 after taking off from Ramona with a temp of 105 degrees Fahrenheit and zero wind to return to Porterville. We had loaded 1600 gallons of retardant the day before and had our dispatch cancelled at the last minute.

A few days later one of the Boxcar pilots from Ramona stopped by T65 when we were at Fox Field to work a fire. He wanted to buy me a beer because all Fire Season the people running the Ramona Tanker Base had been griping about how horrible the Boxcar looked struggling into the air while working out of Ramona. Apparently, my last take-off from there made the Boxcar look like a rocket by comparison. We had to make a very shallow bank around the valley and lifted off with maybe 50 feet of runway left and 10 mph lower airspeed than I wanted. We had a rate of climb between zero and 100 feet per minute rate of climb until the gear and flaps were retracted. Then we managed our usual 250 feet per minute rate of climb.

This is the Ramona Tanker Base in 1982

D34D12D8-F24B-47BF-B33E-06D2E3045B88 by tanker622001, on Flickr

23BF5D23-6347-4DE0-92D6-B1E66E3B73D4 by tanker622001, on Flickr

1EC35650-2EC4-4837-8346-81BD3B196196 by tanker622001, on Flickr

40FBEA24-C9F7-4F59-B92D-F0055DA27619 by tanker622001, on Flickr

[Ken]

A quick google shows that Cal Fire is getting 7 former Coast Guard C-130H's, which is a good thing. Possibly the most important point is that they're reported to come with new center wing boxes and a fresh USAF Depot Maintenance visit. That will go a long way towards helping keep these birds safe and productive for the next 20 years.

Ken

[junkman9096]

Late last summer I saw a CAL FIRE C-130 climbing out of my local Air Attack Base (Ukiah). Think it was a familiarization flight as the runway is about 4400 ft which might be a bit short for regular use by a fully loaded C-130. But I don't profess to have any expertise in the matter.

[sandiego89]

A few days later one of the Boxcar pilots from Ramona stopped by T65 when we were at Fox Field to work a fire. He wanted to buy me a beer because all Fire Season the people running the Ramona Tanker Base had been griping about how horrible the Boxcar looked struggling into the air while working out of Ramona. Apparently, my last take-off from there made the Boxcar look like a rocket by comparison. We had to make a very shallow bank around the valley and lifted off with maybe 50 feet of runway left and 10 mph lower airspeed than I wanted. We had a rate of climb between zero and 100 feet per minute rate of climb until the gear and flaps were retracted. Then we managed our usual 250 feet per minute rate of climb.

Larry, great pictures and story. I asked you a few questions about the jet on a thread a while back, and I recall you saying while not a total game changer, it gave a bit of extra assurance. How would you use the booster jet on the boxcar? Used often, or only on short runways? Electric start from the battery? full thrust before takeoff roll? Used for full climb out, or only until a safe altitude/speed reached? As a kid growing up the 1970's and 80's in Ojai CA, I remember the "borate" bombers well. Thank you.

[Adam Kline]

Thanks for the Photo. In 1982 I flew with my Uncle there in his Censsna 140 and I got to climb into the B-17 which had had a bad landing and was pulled to the side of the runway. It was a sureal experience. Mike Pinketh was a fire control pilot and a friend of ours at the base. He flew both fixed wing and rotor birds. My child hood idol.

[Larry Kraus]

For San Diego 89. Here’s the thread on the Boxcar and the jet use that you mentioned.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=72255&start=0

I suppose a take-off from a long runway might be done without starting the jet to save fuel, but the single engine performance, even empty with the Box was so marginal that I doubt that anyone did it very often. Most tanker contracts paid for the fuel as did the Fish Haul people, so there was no need to worry about that unless you were really low on fuel and couldn’t refuel until the next stop.

The H&P Boxcars that I flew in had to run both recips at a considerable amount of power while starting the jet. P2V tankers with the same J34s usually had an extra generator on the engines to help with starting them. I don’t remember if we ran the APU during jet starts or not, but I’m pretty sure that we did. On the Fish Haul with a load the jet was run until reaching cruise altitude and it felt like someone had dropped the landing gear when the jet was throttled back and shut down.

The jet would be run to full thrust before brake release, but at low airspeeds the jet doesn’t put out much thrust, so even with both recips at max power and maybe with water injection take-offs from a short runway on a hot day with no wind could be exciting. With tankers you could jettison the load. With the Fish Haul we used 115/145 avgas and water injection on the recips and the jet was a must until you had some altitude to play with.

[Larry Kraus]

Although this occurred last summer it just appeared on the Fire Aviation website today. It’s related to the C-130 test out of Ramona.

Here’s a link to the story

https://fireaviation.com/2022/02/09/pho ... a-airport/

Here are the pictures from the article. There’s a link to a video of a take-off with the 737 in the Fire Aviation article above. Remembering that the runway is 1000 feet longer than it was when I flew a B-17 out of there and that the 737 is empty, you can see how marginal it can be to work out of Ramona with Large Air Tankers.

3CFCF8F0-279D-498D-8705-B22494390BCD by tanker622001, on Flickr

861510FF-AC9F-49F1-BEDA-2CA2C590E9DA by tanker622001, on Flickr

57AA6C4B-C78C-4A93-97C4-2C1F93EBF0D2 by tanker622001, on Flickr

[bdk]

Larry, what makes an airplane an acceptable tanker? Looks like the operators don't discriminate much between types with the current crop of airliners being used lately.

[Malo 1]

Thank,s Larry, love those old tanker pics, back in the 60's lived near the Porterville airport, whenever their was a fire going we would ride our bikes out to the airport to watch them takeoff and land. The F7F's and the TBM's were my favorite, F15, B17, PB4Y and the old 119 would make visits.

[Larry Kraus]

That’s a good question bdk as to what constitutes an acceptable Tanker these days.

To start with the airplane must meet contract requirements for retardant load, airspeed and endurance while operating as a tanker. Two and a half hours on a normal fuel load with a full retardant load used to be a requirement. I don’t know what the contract specs are these days, but this document covers most of the requirements and is the latest that I can find.

https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/f ... oved_0.pdf

As for aircraft types, they must be relatively cheap and plentiful with readily available spares and engines at an affordable price. That’s why military surplus airplanes were used initially and jet airliners are used today. Of course, the airplane must have good low speed handling and good power to weight ratio is a plus. I think that the current Large Air Tanker fleet which consists of mainly Bae 146 and RJ 85s, MD-87s as well as some Boeing 737s and a few C-130s is because of readily available relatively cheap surplus airframes. Designing an acceptable retardant tank can be a major challenge.

My hands on tanker experience was in B-17s and DC-7s. Both had reasonable performance for their day. Low speed maneuverability were quite good once you learned what the airplane could and couldn’t do. In my day there were numerous aircraft models on contract. Some were better than others. Most of the serious problems in the early 2000s were due to corrosion. That’s a given with fire retardant and careful winter inspections helped. Eventually we ran out of spares and engines and the cost and availability of avgas and especially 120W engine oil became a major issue.