IMHO, modified C130's/Caribous/Buffalos or similar aircraft would be the ideal size - big enough to be effective with significant retardent drops yet not unweildy like a 747. The current fleet of small-scale fixed-wing and rotary aircraft should also be expanded under a co-ordinated central agency. The picture posted on the previous page shows how brilliantly the Americans do it, and in California they have similar landscape and vegetation to us. Surely this loss of life is incentive enough for us to finally get our act together with a cohesive and disciplined agency to oversee aerial firefighting on a much larger scale.
The fleet of say 5 aircraft could easily be based at 3 or 4 strategic locations statewide (say Mangalore, Sale and Horsham in Vic -Richmond, Cessnock and Canberra in NSW and Renmark and Edinburgh in SA). These are underutilised airports with good existing infrastructure, yet close enough to population bases and volunteers and seemily close to where the fires always occur.
These bases could easily have large capacity reserviours filled from nearby waterways, potentially with the inclusion of chemical dispersal agents and retardents. The aircraft simply lands, plugs in and is off again in minutes. It seems the only way to tackle such problematic outbreaks before they become uncontrollable infernos.
In these times where governments realise the need for social spending to stimulate the economy, surely this would be the most worthy of causes. If money is ever quoted by fiscal naysayers as an issue (and these people will pop up), then send the fleet overseas during our winter to recruit some $. However, I would have thought with a death toll approaching 200 that would be incentive enough.