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C130 Firebomber crash
Channel Ten is showing amateur footage of a C130 firebomber crashing in california, and its a good bet the same footage will appear on the news tonight. Ten says the bomber caught fire and crashed, but the footage seems to indicate a nasty spar failure before everything else happened. Sobering footage.
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Hope they were not exceeding MTOW/MZFW limitations :confused:
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I don't know what you think is funny about that Bagot - three crew DIED.
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Tragic but I can't help thinking of the irony of the "Breaking News" caption on the pic.
Would be interested to know the history of the airframe and would be amazed if it hadn't had a long and useful life. Looks to me like a catastrophic airframe failure. I understand that there is some serious turbulence in low level fires fighting that just might have been the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. |
I read a book on these operations a while back. Many of the aircraft are very well maintained but also very old, having gone from USAF to Air National Guard before being given to the forestry service or air bomber operators for a token amount. I think theres even a C87 ( cargo B24) still in operation somewhere, or was until recently. These planes do short hard sorties at low altitudes, and thats hard work for any airframe, espescially in the turbulent conditions around summer forest fires. Those guys deserve more recognition. They have an incredible level of professionalism.
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Knave I saw a C87/B24 dropping on these fires on CNN a few nights ago.
The risks these guys take make 'Always' look a little tame. The above mentioned C87 was dropping in a curving steep bank, in the vicinity of 45 to 60 degrees and a few hundred feet 'AGL' from the mountainside.. Imagine the stresses that puts on the spar!! Rolling 'G' combined with legal MTOW increases over normal, bad turbulence, negative stresses caused by dumping several tonnes of retardant, reduced vis, etc etc...repeatedly every day while on task! And on aircraft that are up to 50 years old!!! A mate does this every year in Canada, flying converted Trackers. He has had to cope with an engine failure virtually every year...and if the emerg dump or prop feather button doesn't work as advertised you are dead...even when they do you can face a winding trip back to base along valleys in smoke because the aircraft is incapable of climbing out...sound like they get paid enough? It doesn't to me and he gets about CAN$100K for a season. My deepest respects to crews that do this for a living and my deepest condolences to those they have left behind. Chuck.:( |
Interesting post by DrSyn in reporting points.
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...ferrerid=40952 Condolences to those involved. :( |
This has happened before on a C130-Have a read
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?e...06X02066&key=1 :( |
Another shot, what a nightmare.
http://www.airdisaster.com/news/0602/18/1.jpg |
Some model Hercs also had a nasty problem with "dry bay" explosions in the center wing box, as occurred to one early 90's that was being delivered to the Forest service from the Air Force...
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I read a thingy put together by a Lockheed dude saying the A model involved was ex military and had been retired in/around '77 and brought out of "retirement" for fire bombing in the 90's. It had not had any work done on the center wing box. A models were known to have problems with their wings, hence why they re-engineered for the E,H,J etc. Looks like it's been re-engined as the props are 4 bladers.
PAF :( |
Definitely sobering news and my condolences to the families and friends of the crew.
Firebombing is a hard on airframes and not completing your mission has graver implications than Mr Bloggs not getting to his destination. The Herc has specific fuel requirements relating to Mzfw and the structural strength- eg if you flew till she ran dry the last fuel should be in the outboards. So flying in bs turbulence at low altitudes with 20k odd litres of retardant in the back and having a minumum of weight (fuel) in the main tanks means obviously that your wing spar is copping a flogging. As someone said these acft have high TISs as well- some as high as +90k hrs... and not sitting at flight levels much either... Unfortunately i have heard through the "grapevine" that this particular machine had a recent history of flap binding problems- why it was let to continue to its tragic conclusion will be left to the inquiry i guess. HJ |
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