Flapoot
You may possibly be right about the big pistons but but your comments on the aging airframes is a bit incorrect.The Neptunes are about the same age as the CV580 and L188 airframes with probably a lot less hours. The Orions (are they still in use) would also have a lot of hours up, way more than the Neptunes that they replaced.
The L188s and CV580 seem to be doing a good job so it appears that the safety problems (if there is any) may be engines not airframes.
It would be interesting to find out what happened to the Japanese produced propjet Neptunes?
Ultimately anything to do with fighting firesd is risky evn onthe ground so there is no perfect aircraft evn a new purpose built one.
Last edited by Wunwing; 27th Jun 2012 at 06:03.