Originally Posted by
rattman
I sail with a former black hawk, now MRH90 pilot, he says they were trained in bambi bucket operation (didn't say when) because they could be called upon to quench fires on military property/ranges where could be unexploded ordenance. Every so often they re-practice it. He said in theory he could do it, has all the flight skills to do it, but know nothing about fires he would need to fly in the left seat of an experience fire fighting pilot before he thinks it would be more than a token effort on their part.
Thats completely ignoring the cost of running a military chopper vs civilian which is 3times more expensive per flight hour
While RAN MRH has the capability to conduct bambi-bucket ops, not many of the crews are actually qualified in it. Without wanting to take this thread off topic, in my opinion the ADF could provide more assistance via the privision of man-power for support roles to the RFS guys and girls on the ground.