This subject has been done to death her before but its good to see it up again.The rest of the world seems to think heavy fire bombers work, but somehow we are different.I suspect the real problem is that the only way that we could have a cost effective fire bombing fleet is under a Federal system and that would take money away from the State system.
I recently saw an academic paper that the no large fire bombing policy appears to be based on. It cites experiments using Canadian aircraft and over the years an F27, DC6 and a Canadair have been used. The problem is there was only ever one at a time. Thats a bit like saying that in a large timber yard fire, we sent one fire truck and it didn't work , so fire trucks don't work.
What we need is a fleet of aircraft that can dump 5/10 tons of water using adjustable drop patterns.The Canadian companies Airspray and Conair do just that and it seems to work. Recently they have been working in the US and even in California, on Gum Trees.The Canadians even have ex Australian aircraft with Airspray using 2 x ex Aust L188s in their fleet and Conair reported as obtaining 2 ex Aust CV580s.
Right now there are 11 Grumman Trackers for sale in Victoria which are very able fire bombers when converted to Conair Firecats with PT6s. All but 1 have been hangared for about 20 plus years and seem in excellent condition. The Californians use a large fleet of these aircraft on their Eucalypt fires and they seem to work.However no-one here seems interested.
There was a Neptune fully converted in Perth for many years but there was no interest in that aircraft either, despite successfull operations of that type in the USA.
And finally there is a big push from operators of small aircraft who use fire bombing as a top up for other businesses. They do a good job but don't have the grunt of big aircraft.They do have the lobby power with local politicians and see large aircraft as a threat.
The end result is too much politicising and no heavy dump aircraft.
Wunwing
Last edited by Wunwing; 6th Nov 2009 at 23:48.