A different firebomber

[Neal Nurmi]

Down in the US we saw Neptunes and Orions. Up here we have converted Electra airliners. This one dates from 1980, and was owned and operated by the Los Angeles Dodgers for several years.

We have been pretty much fire free to this point, but that is changing fast. The big firebombers have been elsewhere in the provice (150 or more fires burning at once with some really big). This weekend we had a smallish lightning fire about ten miles from our house and less than 5 miles from the airport. On Sunday it became a big nasty fire due to extremely windy conditions. By Monday it was a couple thousand acres and had taken at least three homes. The fire service hit the fire really hard and things are stable (if scary) now.

The airport and firebase were right at the edge of the smoke cloud -- you can see the smoke in the trees and obscuring the Rockies in these shots, and how much clearer it was looking away from the smoke. It took a lot longer to load the airplanes than it took for the airplanes to get rid of their loads.

Click on the pictures for a better look...

Attachments

[phil65]

Bring back the Mars...

Phil

[DH82EH]

Stay safe Neil. Scary times.

Andy

[Neal Nurmi]

Thank you Andy and we plan to do so. It stinks outside, but as far as we know the fire is not moving much. It is still just 6 miles away, so the town is on edge. No evacuation alerts here yet, which is a good thing. I just hope the winds stay quiet.

I preferred the old days, when I had to travel to photograph firebombers...

Attachments

[Stoney]

Neal
Had one 4 miles from us last year and we packed up, but didn't have to bug out. stay safe.

[Blackbirdfan]

Bring back the Mars...

Phil

This! Even if it only makes two drops per hour, it will keep pace with a DC10 in terms of volume dropped. (Actually it will exceed it) There are far more lakes the Mars can work from in BC than there are runways long enough to handle the bigger jets.

If a CL415 is acceptable as a water bomber based off of its drop speed and altitude as well as airspeed too and from the lake, the Mars is also. They are very closely matched aside from volume dropped.

Will

[Dan Jones]

I suspect that the Mars is out of the game now for the same reasons that all the other old, WW2-era iron is. Too bad. I'd be very curious to know what the cost of a gallon of water delivered via the Mars is vs a -215 or a -415. I bet the Mars was cheaper.

The Electra is a phenomenal tanker. I'm currently on my sixth season flying an Electra tanker and it's a marvellous platform with it's 3000 us gallon tank and four Allisons. The Electra is one of the few airplanes out there that will descend and slow down simultaneously, which makes it easy to paddle around the circuit five or six hundred feet above your drop altitude so you can see better, and at a comfortable one-hundred and fifty knots or so. Our target drop speed is one-hundred and twenty-five knots and on final a mile or so back from the trigger point she'll shed both her excess speed and altitude without really working very hard to do it. As soon as the load is gone and you open the taps she's accelerating instantly and easily and climbing away. The Allisons give you INSTANT power as they are always running at 100% rpm so there is no spool-up. And you've got three-thousand pounds of power steering so you can literally fly her around with your fingertips. She must have seemed like an absolute spaceship when she showed up in the late fifties/early sixties. I'd love to get my hands on a P-3 someday and take it for a spin as you don't have to fly an Electra very long to realize why somebody figured out it would be a good sub-hunting platform - she's a natural attack airplane!

And for you nostalgics out there, the tanks on our two Electras are the old Aero Union, eight-door, DC-4 tanks, fillable to a higher level. Unlike a constant flow tank these ones you can drop in single doors, double doors, half loads, or the whole smash all at once (which is kinda uncomfortable) and in high or low flow.

Last edited by Dan Jones on Fri Jul 21, 2023 11:17 am, edited 4 times in total.

[DH82EH]

That's some really cool insight there Dan. Thanks for that.

Andy

[Hooligan2]

Any likelihood of more P-3s being converted for fire fighting duties?

[Neal Nurmi]

Thank you for that post, Dan. I have long wondered about the Electra as a firebomber, and had admired the airplane as a kid -- I always loved the look with the stubby wings and big motors. It gets little notice, being Canadian and so pretty much invisible south of the border.

Our fire is not getting better. It tripled in size in 24 hours and has now destroyed seven homes. The evacuation alerts have been extended to include the airport and city fire crews are deployed there to protect "critical infrastructure". It would be a special irony to have the fire base burned up in a forest fire. I'm not hearing any firebomber activity at all so far today -- visibility is less than a mile here and the airport is halfway between us and the active fire and I suspect that activity has shut down for the moment due to not being able to see anything.

There are only two ways out of my town, and the alerts (but not the fire itself, yet) now include several miles of one of our ways out. It smells like a campfire outside and my eyes water and sting every time I step outside. Nervous times here in paradise...

[Hooligan2]

Fingers crossed for you and your neighbours Neal...

[Dan Jones]

Don't wait too long, Neal.

The Conair and Airspray guys (and I have a few friends amongst them) are Tops at what they do, but when the vis is way down we just can't do very much. Every tanker pilot's nightmare is to hit a crew on the ground or a helicopter so some times we have no choice but to sit it out. Fighting a fire is like fighting any other kind of war: ultimately it's the "boots on the ground" that put the fires out, we just assist them where we can and as best we can. If you're out Red Deer way this Fall once we're home give me a call and I'll give you the nickel tour.

Dan

[JohnB]

I would guess Canada is the home for most airworthy Electras.
Anyone know how many?
Any fire bomber P-3s based up there?

Also, any chance (if they are ever retired) of CP-140 Auroras being converted to firebombers?
Once the SLEP is completed they should have lots of life yet.
Wiki says two of the three CP-140A Arcturus aircraft were sent to
D-M with one going to a museum.
Any chance they could be converted?

[Neal Nurmi]

Don't wait too long, Neal.

The Conair and Airspray guys (and I have a few friends amongst them) are Tops at what they do, but when the vis is way down we just can't do very much. Every tanker pilot's nightmare is to hit a crew on the ground or a helicopter so some times we have no choice but to sit it out. Fighting a fire is like fighting any other kind of war: ultimately it's the "boots on the ground" that put the fires out, we just assist them where we can and as best we can. If you're out Red Deer way this Fall once we're home give me a call and I'll give you the nickel tour.

Dan

"Don't wait too long" has been a front of mind thought for many in this town. I know people who were caught up in that Fort McMurray ugliness a few years ago, and I want no part of driving through flames in a 5 mile traffic jam trying to get away. Having said that we still have no alert here in Kimberley and the fire seems to be mostly pushing North away from the two towns. The fire crews have been doing small controlled burns around the airport to reduce fuel. So quite a big and destuctive fire, very out of control, but mostly going the other way. We will see what morning brings.

[Neal Nurmi]

Double post...

Last edited by Neal Nurmi on Fri Jul 21, 2023 10:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.