To those in the know can you enlighten us. Why are many of the current fire fighting aircraft in Australia foreign owned and operated? It would appear mainly from the US and Canada.

Is there a reason Australian industry is unable to provide this taxpayer funded multi-million dollar service?

Capability restrictions? Hinderance from CASA? Australian government tender process?

B737 - 15,000 litres capacity
Air Tractor 802 - 3000 litres capacity. And almost certainly can deliver load with better precision.

Surely, 5 x Air Tractors are cheaper town and operate than a single 737? Not to mention the issue of redundancy.

doesn’t quite work that way. It has a lot to do with drop patterns, variability of the tank etc

think right tool for the job, you don’t use 10 ball peen hammers to do the job of a sledgehammer.

every aircraft has it’s place even though it may not seem apparent at first.

I think you need a mixed fleet for economy of effort.

To use a 737, C130 and other big iron is nice, but you need a dedicated water supply, pumps and mixing tanks capable of refilling the aircraft quickly and there aren’t going to be many of these necessarily near a fire and they are rather a blunt instrument compared to a SEAT or a helicopter with a bucket.

I fought one fire last year which luckily was only about 8km from the regional base and also luckily three SEATS were available.

They set up a circuit so we got a drop about every ten minutes and they controlled one inaccessible flank of the fire, leaving us to deal with the other one. A B737 or C130 would have been overkill and probably not very effective as this fire was on a hillside where access was difficult and you needed to confirm it was out by stages. The smaller aircraft controlled by the spotter helicopter was able to target the drops very precisely which meant we didn’t have to run and hide all the time because the drops could be synchronised with our work rate, it all worked out quite well.

Later we had the Myhree fire where there was a lot of forested ridgetops burning and the potential of losing a lot of the King valley grape harvest due to smoke taint. The C130’s did a great job on the main fire fronts which were large and inaccessible. All we had to do was watch the edges and look out for spotting.

I flew about 5 or so seasons with B412/212’s on fires in Australia and honestly the heavy aircraft have their place.

until you’ve seen them in action on the fires where they had devastating effect you won’t be a convert like I was.

on the first fire I mentioned, a big aircraft would have been impractical. The fire was relatively small and access was difficult - steep paddock leading up to the edge of forest, erosion gullies and old fences everywhere. We had about five trucks in.

For a big dump, it would have taken us at least three quarters of an hour to get clear and the same to get back. The little aircraft were bombing about 75 to 100 metres away which meant we didn’t have far to go to get clear and return, at least that’s my recollection. A big “nuclear “ retardant drop was probably out of place. The SEATs did just fine.

Not so the Myhree fire, which got started by two kids doing circle work in an old car in a grassy paddock.

like i said there’s a time and place for every tool in the shed, you personally just haven’t seen the need yet, doesn’t mean there isn’t the need.

There’s a need alright. We had the C130s at the Myhree fire. Bigger would have been better.

The SEATS are also very good as quick response, faster than the hero’s and our tankers.

Thank you or the information Gentlemen. To move away from the merits of different platforms/techniques and back to the original question.

I understand from the reply’s that the majority of smaller aircraft are Australian operators. Why then can Australian industry not provide the ‘heavy’ machines? The expensive taxpayer funded ones.

For example the NSW Government signed a deal with Coulson of Canada for 737 and Citation operations. US or Canadian (?) C130 and BAe146 contract tankers. US Erickson Skycrane heavy choppers in Victoria, US registered Dauphin in QLD fires this week, US Blackhawks at Bankstown etc etc etc

the US registers dauphin and and bell 214’s are actually owned by McDermott Aviation which is an Australian Company. So don’t assume that all N registered aircraft are owned and operated by a US company.

Skycranes are owned and operated by Erickson but brought in under a discreet AOC by an Australian operator, so they are getting a decent cut. Erickson also builds their skycranes as they are the manufacturer. They have sold some to other countries and also supplement that fleet with counteracts operating on opposite summers. An Aussie company can’t afford this investment and have them sit idle over winter.

now you say well why doesn’t the Aussie send their own aircraft overseas in winter? Well there’s lots of financial and regulatory reasons and also ability to compete on price as to why that doesn’t happen. One such example being that most of the Australian aircraft have a host of local Aussie EO’s installed in them. To operate those aircraft in the USA on a forestry contract all that equipment would have to be STC’d, forestry doesn’t accept EO’s. That’s not including the fact the US forestry requires those aircraft to be operating under a US part 135/133 certificate, not a discreet AOC like in Australia for the foreign aircraft.

So in short unless you want the taxpayer to pay more than double for the same heavy assets, then it doesn’t make sense for an Australian operator to purchase these assets themselves. This is really what it comes down to.

dont forget that not all N registered aircraft are brought in. Some are actually owned an operated by Aussies but it’s easier than having them on the casa register for a myriad of regulatory reasons with casa being casa.

Dan the man is wheeled out about this time each year in front of the lineup of birds on the tarmac with every media outlet in attendance.

That’s why.

Yes. You are about 3 months out of date with your newsflash!

So 5 x Airtractors operating simultaneously cannot replicate the same drop pattern as 1 x 737? Intuitively, this would surprise me. 15,000 litres is 15,000 litres.

+1 for what Havick said. Sometimes one big splash is required, other times a water pistol does better. You also need to know that a drop can be very dangerous to firefighters underneath, it ain’t just gentle summer rain, so their safety is another thing that has to be considered.

Try Australian Aviation December 2018 re purchase.