Nick,
If I am so wrong....produce that Excel spread sheet with the cost data I asked for. I am not from Missouri...but they have the right idea...."Show Me!".
I am not jealous of the Guvmint and their fancy helicopters...but I am damn sure not inclined to look favorably at the guvmint using my tax dollars to compete with private business.
The police and fire department are standard government operations....usually because it cannot be done effectively by private industry and in the case of the Police...require government powers that cannot be delegated to private business.
Forest fire fighting...brush fire fighting...using helicopters and airplanes is and should be a business done by private industry. SAR can be done by private enterprise....case in point is Bristow Helicopters in the UK undercontract to the Coastguard there. I would suggest with the pisspoor SAR coverage offered in the Gulf of Mexico by our USCG....we should do the same thing there...hire civilians.
There is no way a government run operation dedicated solely to firefighting can be as cost effective as private industry.....prove it to me otherwise by posting your cost analysis.
As Mustang Pilot rightly states....watching the video of Army Blackhawks and Chinooks slinging those big white bags of dirt/rocks/concrete to the levee's made my heart hurt. A total waste of assets......the Blackhawk fighting the building fire along with the three fire boats was a real study in frustration.
Those two scenes were plainly obivious the wrong crews and aircraft were dedicated to the task....no insult to the crews...they were doing their best but were not experienced or equipped to do that work. Civilian longline pilots simply out work the military when it comes to specialized flying that the civilians are doing on a daily basis and the military rarely does and then does it poorly to begin with.