Firebombers
As one of the pilots involved with fighting the Pt. Lincoln fire, I can assure our fellow respondents that the two AT602 and two AT802 SEAT'S provided excellent support over the life of the fire. With two AT602's based at lincoln for the summer and two AT802's arriving within 1.2 hrs from up to 145nm away within 1 hour of activation demonstrates the versatility of the fixed wing fleet within Sth Aust. The crane took in excess of 2 hrs to get to lincoln, did one load, refuelled, did 3 loads, pulled out with a maintenance problem, further 3 loads, repeat previous, then for the media continued for a further hour when the fire was benign and the SEAT's had been stood down! No sour grapes here but I pay my taxes too! The Ericsson is a magnificent platform for fire operations but is massively expensive, maintenence intensive, and requires ready access to available water resources to be effective. This was not available at the recent conflagration at Pt Lincoln. If the wind did not preclude the crane from scooping from the bay, the fire would not have had the intensity anyway, so the SEAT's would still have been effective. I am very proud of the work that all who were involved in this incident achieved in very arduous and trying flying and ground support conditions (including the crane guys) but to achieve what we did took an exceptional aircraft, and for my money that is the SEAT Airtractor's Cheers.......