Reflections on tanker availability

We are due to the enter the wildfire season with 11 heavy tankers, including Neptune's T-40 (BAe-146). As for the whereabouts of T-40, Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today reported in an article he posted yesterday (scroll to the bottom of the article).

Having heard nothing to the contrary, I assume that eight of Neptune's P-2s and Minden's two P-2's are ready to go when their respective contracted mandatory availability period starts. You may recall that Neptune Aviation found a wing crack in one of their Lockheed P-2V tankers and the FAA issued an Emergency Air Directive calling for inspections of all Lockheed P-2V tankers. As I understand it, Neptune's tanker with the cracked wing is undergoing repairs, with the rest of Neptune's P-2's (8) and Minden's two P-2s ready to go. That brings us to ten heavy tankers. Recall that the USFS terminated their contract with Aero Union last summer, grounding Aero Union's Lockheed P-3's.

Some of you might be wondering about the very large airtankers (the DC-10 tankers and Evergreen's Boeing 747 supertanker to be specific). Good question. Last year, the US Forest Service did not have exclusive use contracts for the DC-10 tankers or the 747 tanker. Instead, the USFS offered call when needed (CWN) contracts. Evergreen did not sign, Tanker 10 company (DC-10 tankers) did sign, see two articles by Bill Gabbert here for more information. What about this year? You'd think that given that we have fewer heavy tankers this year as compared with last year at this time (eight Aero Union P-3s and 11 P-2s, T-40 was not on contract until later in 2011) that the USFS will sign exclusive use contracts for the 747 super tanker (20,000 gallons of retardant) and the two DC-10 tankers (12,000 gallons of retardant). Not only do exclusive use contracts mean that these tankers are on call and available during the contract period, but exclusive use contracts offer make it financially worthwhile for the respective companies. CWN contracts only pay when the tankers see action, meaning that if they are not activated, the contractors are not paid. As far as I know the USFS has not offered exclusive use contracts for either tanker.

Coulson's Martin Mars is also a very large airtanker (VLAT). I don't quite recall if Coulson's Martin Mars tanker saw action in America last year, but I do believe that she flew in Mexico. And she has flown fires in California in past years, for example in 2009.

I know that we still have the single engine airtankers (SEATs) and a variety of helicopters including helitankers such as the Erickson AirCrane on various national contracts. All are valuable aerial firefighting resources, as are the various aerial firefighting resources that individual states contract for.

In addition, there are the MAFFs, and perhaps Canada will loan us some of their Convair 580s and CL-215/415 water scoopers later in the fire season as they did last summer, see another article by Bill Gabbert from last September on air tankers that were available last year.

And we do await news of the USFS RFP for next generation turbine tankers as reported here, but I have no idea whether the awarding of this contract will lead to more heavy tankers on contract during the 2012 fire season.

I don't know about you, but I will miss Aero Union's P-3s this fire season.