My point is that speculation, while natural, should have regard to the context of operations. Talk of checking for fuel contamination at Richmond or other potential immediate operational issues is fine.

However these aerial firefighting operations are ongoing for probably another month and wild speculation about wings falling off, etc. ,etc. are not exactly helpful to families and friends of crew who already worrying that their loved ones will come back at the end of their shift today, tomorrow and the next day and the next. They are also possibly a nuisance at the very least to the people who are doing their damndest to keep everything safe and operational if they are silly enough to read much pprune.

To put that another way, do you want to be told by someone, who has read it on pprune that some internet expert says your husband/ wife/ son/ daughter is needlessly (for that is the implication) risking their life in a death trap who’s wings are going to fall off?

And the next few days are high fire danger, so the tempo may increase.

’Give it a break for a few weeks, then you can pontificate as much as you like.

How do you know what the inflight visibility was from the cockpit just from watching that video shot from a km or more away?
How does flight in IMC lead to loss of control?
If it was IMC how could the phone owner see the aircraft?
What are you smoking?
Why are you so desperate to appear knowledgeable instead of growing up?
Why don't you leave the discussion to professionals or others who have a clue instead of trying to draw attention to yourself with your profoundly ignorant peanut gallery offerings?

I think you summed it up nicely there.

This thread audience has been diminished by one for a remarkable increase in collective IQ.

One more chance, stick to the subject or the thread will be closed. :mad:

A question came up in dicussion tonight Assume C130H, Full power, 2,000Kg Load, fuel for 3 hours, density altitude 5,000 ft, Max angle of climb speed -Any idea of ROC

WAG was 3,000 fpm @ 130 kts but without the book it is just a WAG

That's not a bad WAG. Lockheed doesn't publish Max angle of climb speeds and charts, at least for the civilian operators, but you can kinda get an idea from the enroute climb charts. Figure 80,000 lb BOW, 5,000 lb load (rounding up) 15000 lb fuel for 100K . At ISA+ 20 climb would be 2470 fpm from 2000 to 4000. That would be with flaps retracted, normal climb power, and 170 kt IAS.

They'd have been configured with flap for the drop at least. A previous poster suggested that due to fatigue management the aircraft would have a reasonable load of fuel in the wings. That said, I'd still imagine it would climb quite well from my very uneducated knowledge on the C-130.

To me, this video shows a collection of "holes in the cheese";

1: Approach and retardant drop with a tail wind.
2: Possible loss of density altitude flying into a mass of heated air.
3: Possible erroneous readout of altitude gain due to altitude density change.
4: Possible drop in power output due to change in oxygen content while flying into smoke.
5: Possible temporary IIMC flying into smoke (can't confirm this from the video, not sure if they were in the smoke or on the other side of it)
6: Slight rise in terrain as evidenced by some images of the debris field.
7: Possible fatigue due to workload and intensity of the work.
8: Working in a timezone 8 hours different then your native timezone (not sure how long they had been in Australia prior to the accident.}
9: Pressure to continue working despite the possible fatigue and difficult conditions.

So the scenario becomes this: Flying with a strong tail wind, immediately after the drop, the pilot is immediately into what is effectively IMC, probably adding power, but suffering a power loss due to the depleted oxygen levels of the smoke column. His altimeter shows a false climb as the altitude density falls, and his wings loose lift at the same time, but he has no visual clues to see this. And all of this occurs in about 10 seconds. Add in a slight grade increase of the terrain at the same time that he cannot see, probably compounded by fatigue challenges and pressure to continue, and there are more than enough holes to add up to an ever increasing set of additive factors.

At the same time, the bravery of these dedicated individuals is nothing less than super heroic. Just a very very sad event in a tragic period of Australian history.

Respect to the crew, and condolences to those they left behind.

Patrickal, I reckon you’d scored very highly with your above post. Only time will tell.

With all due respect, sir, you have NEVER dropped a load of water or retardant on a forest-fire - not one - EVER.

And you sure know nothing about Coulson's operation.

ATSB preliminarily report - C-130 large air tanker accident
 

Actual report here, the above is a media release.

https://www.atsb.gov.au/publications...r/ao-2020-007/

Unfortunately for the investigators, no CVR :(

Density altitude about 6000ft. 25-39 knots gusting tailwind. About 30C. Moderate mountain wave activity. I don’t think I’d like to be flying very low in those conditions.

Any ideas why an apparently functioning CVR recorder would have recorded the previous flight, but not the accident flight?

It recorded a previous operational flight in the US, which suggests it was only turned on as required by company ops manual? I don’t believe the op was it’s first in country and indeed it had to get here in the first place with the ferry not recorded either.

CVRs usually only record the last two hours on a continuous loop. Sounds like it had been U/S for some time. Not the first time that has happened.

This one was 30 minutes according to the ATSB report. Looks like it hadn't worked for some time. Probably not a "requirement" under the operational category in Australia so either U/S and deferred or made inop by the operator.

I can’t understand why anyone would purposely deactivate a crash recorder, regulatory requirement or not. There has to be another explanation.

Did the lead a/c take them DOWN for a second drop... then the hillside materialised?

No mention of a lead aircraft at the incident site nor the earlier Adaminiby Complex tasking.