Thanx for the insight, FB,
I only hope that you see the reasoning in John E´s staement about smaler fuel load and no crew(wo)man and bring it to the attention of your team and superiours.
Even with 2,5 hr fuel you would need a bouser for a fire operation - so you could start right away with efficiency. If you left the crewman on ground he could do the sitting on the bambi and you could leave person n° 4 at home
.
I much apeciate the whole operation and NRW police being the leading force again, but there need to be some adjustments right away, me thinks:
@crab - during the last years the east of Germany has suffered the most of the fires during the dry season. NRW police is right on the other side of the country.
They are just starting this operation, so the other forces will wait and see first - so far for having the police helicopters on stand-by anyway.
By the way - German operators have their aircraft in the south of Europe during fire season because here nobody is willing to pay them. The "poor(er)" south seems to have the budgets!? If Germany had a reasonable budget I am sure the operators would have some aircraft available.