Captain R,. .I was responsible for the trial of the MAFFS on C130s in 1982. We were trained by the Californian Air National Guard at Boise in Idaho. The system was then trialled in Victoria and I demonstrated it at Mangalore. Unfortunately there were few fires and it was brought out the next year in anticipation of a big fire season. We then proceeded to use the system during Ash Wednesday and other fires in the Dandenongs and Cann River.
Spectacular flying but sadley it had several draw backs. Unlike the US where they stacked 6 to 12 aircraft and continually bomb the fire, the C130 was restricted in Victoria due to aerodrome pavement and runway length, particularly on hot northerly days. Hamilton, Mangalore and East Sale where set up with portable swimming pools to mix the retardent. Hamilton was particularly interesting on a hot day. Refil of retardent and compressed air took about 25 minutes due to small pumps(9 in the US). Travel and turn around time meant it was about an hour between sorties.
The system held about 3000 US gallons and the system weighed about 9000 lbs empty (from memory). To protect the aircrafts 3G limitation for turbulence a minumum of about 18000 lbs had to be maintained in the wings. External tanks where removed.
The system could fire one, two or three shots with a maximum spread of about 400 metres. Three shots enabled you to triangulate small spot fires. A one shot pass down a slope would add about 10 knots to the aircraft meaning that flap overspeeds occasionally occurred.
So to use them effectively with sufficient concentration of effort you would need 4 to 6 C130's at about $1 million a pop in leasing fees.. .The RAAF at the time where not keen on tying up one C130 on continuous standby which was another problem as we were permanently on three hour standby and on severe days one hour standby.
In my opinion, Elvis is the way to go with its flexibility and quick turn arounds. One Canadair would also have operating restrictions in a lot of bush fire areas without suitable lakes and rivers.. .Cheers <img src="smile.gif" border="0">