Originally Posted by
junior.VH-LFA
I'm not sure where or how this assumption keeps cropping up in Air Tanker discussions that military crew are just waiting around not flying with spare time to master an entirely new role. In the decade I've been in, I haven't seen military aviation busier than it is now, and that was before Operation Bushfire Assist started. It is just simply not true that the military have the people available to do this, or the aircraft (currently at least). It would be much better suited to a civilian agency with the actual expertise to do the work, not just a slapped together currency to tick off once every 3 months.
Good post. Lots of calls for re purposing C130s that are idle, when reality suggests they are anything but idle. In fact the RAAF have asked for help from the JDF with two hercs arriving last week! So much for idle aircraft. And lets not forget the C17 and KC30 missions this week and the next 4 weeks to help the private organisations get the retardant in country thats needed in the form of airlifts (as well as bringing in DC10 spares).
Water bombers are impressive in flight, serve a political purpose of being highly visible but in practice are expensive and not a magic pill for putting fires out. It will be interesting to see how they go with the extra assets and hopefully an increase in ground crews to service them, its been interesting to watch LATS and VLATS hit the south coast firegrounds while staging out of Richmond despite having Canberra not far away, especially in the context of a VLAT drop only being effective in containment for 15 minutes according to the CSIRO study.