Tanker status resources on the web

I have recently come across what is currently a publicly available tanker status listing, updated daily. As I write this, the tanker status page may be accessed here. I'm not quite sure how long this information will be publicly available and I suspect that once all the tankers are off contract, the page will no longer be updated.

There is a lot of information here, some of which may be more information than you want.  But you should get an idea of where tankers are assigned that day. I thought that some of you might find this information interesting, so I decided to write this article.

This tanker status page does not list SEATs, the Very Large Air Tankers (e.g. the DC-10 tankers), nor does it list helos. The one that I am looking at does list the P-2's, Two MAFFS, three of the Convairs, and three Canadair CL-215s.

Data fields such as the current GACC (Geographic Area Coordination Center), current dispatch, provider unit,  and the incident number are coded, but I believe that the first two places in the alphanumeric coding are the two digit US state abbreviation. The current base (airport) may not be useful to you if you don't what state the base is in. But a search on the internet should help you figure out where the base is located.

I thought about trying to decipher one sample entry for you. However, while I have an idea of what most of the information refers to, I suspect that I will get some of the details wrong, so I won't try. At least not now because I am involved in a project that will take me several days to complete leaving me with limited time to update my blog. I'll see what I can do to follow-up on this in a future blog post.

Finally, speaking of the DC-10 tankers, some of you might be interested in knowing where the DC-10 tankers are located. I recently found out that the 10 Tanker Carrier has a twitter page that I was able to access just now without signing on to twitter. For example I understand from recent updates by 10tanker that at least one of the DC-10 tankers will be flying the wildfires currently burning in Texas, perhaps tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 9).