Originally Posted by
tdracer
Evergreen developed a 747 based water bomber about 10 years ago - before Evergreen went belly up. Global then picked up what Evergreen had developed and installed it into a 747-400 - the Global Supertanker. It has a capacity of ~18,000 gallons of water/fire retardant. Apparently it works OK - got used quite a bit during the big California wild fires last year. But, even with a ready supply of old 747s headed for the boneyard, there doesn't appear to be much interest in building another one even though the development work is pretty much done.
I don't know why the lack of interest in increasing the 747 water bomber fleet - perhaps a water bomber that big is just too limited and specialized. But whatever the reason, an A380 water bomber would run into the same issue(s), along with the added costs of development and the limited number of airports it could use.
That's because, as we're figuring out, aerial firefighting is becoming increasingly ineffective against these "big" fires :
https://www.latimes.com/local/califo...407-story.html
We spend so much money on the aerial effort - and see marginal benefits. The Global Supertanker is quite a sight to see - we've seen it here in California too many times over the past couple of years. But - it's horribly expensive to operate and weather and darkness keeps it grounded when it's arguably most useful (night time when fires tend to calm down).
Those tankers need to maneuver in mountainous terrain - it would be something to see an A380 trying to get low enough for an effective pass . . .