1. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today reported here that Pres. Obama signed a bill (S.3261), speaking of S.3261, Bill says that the legislation
could shorten the time required to issue new contracts for air tankers. The bill waives a requirement that the U.S. Forest Service give Congress 30 days notice before they award a contract for an air tanker.Bill Gabbert included a direct link in his article where you can go and download a copy of the bill, I am including that link here for your convenience, a copy of S.3261 may be found here. For those of you who are interested in such things, I myself found a copy of this legislation by going to the legislation and records page of the U.S. Senate where there is a box where you can search for bills. doing This search from the U.S. Senate webpage may give you much more information than you want or need, but I was able to come up with the same copy of S.3261 that Bill linked to through the U.S. Senate website.
Right around the same time that I saw Bill Gabbert's article on S.3261 being signed into law, I also read Michael Archer's Firebomber Publications Blog entry for June 13 where he included an article on Obama signing S.3261 into law from ABC 7 News in Denver CO.
2. I was out and about in the early afternoon for a couple of hours, and when I came back to my office, I saw that Bill Gabbert reporting here that the USFS announced that they will be contracting for 7 additional tankers. As I understand it, three new tankers will go on contract in 2012, with four new tankers going on contract in 2013. Thanks to someone who commented on Bill's blog, I was able to locate the press release from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) with the USFS announcement of seven new air tankers from the USDA newsroom, go here. This press release says in part:
Under the contracts, the four companies will provide three next generation airtankers in 2012 and four next generation airtankers in 2013 as follows:
• Neptune Aviation Services, Inc. will provide 2 BAe-146s in 2012;
• Minden Air Corporation will provide 1 BAe-146 in 2012 and 1 BAe-146 in 2013;
• Aero Air, LLC will provide 2 MD87s in 2013; and
• Aero Flite, Inc. of Kingman, Arizona will provide 1 Avro RJ85 in 2013.
The contracts allow these companies to provide additional next generation airtankers in 2013, 2014, and 2015 contingent on funding and other circumstances.
The contracts are for a base period of five years, with five one-year options for contracts awarded for 2012 and four one-year options for contracts awarded for 2013.
All of the next generation airtankers are turbine powered, can carry a minimum of 2,400 gallons of retardant, and have a cruise speed of at least 300 knots when fully loaded. The companies that are providing them are required to comply with stringent safety requirements in their contracts.
The U.S. Forest Service is working with Neptune Aviation Services, Inc. and Minden Air Corporation to bring the three BAe-146s into service by late summer. Both companies currently hold exclusive use contracts with the U.S. Forest Service to provide airtankers for wildfire suppression.
I know that Neptune currently has one BAe-146, tanker 40, on a contract with the USFS. I am pretty certain that the two new BAe-146's that Neptune Aviation will supply this year do not include tanker 40. So I appreciated reading this article from the Missoulian reporting that Neptune will be providing two additional BAe-146 tankers that they hope to have available for duty by August 1.
Bill Gabbert included descriptions of each of the new aircraft that the USFS will be contracting for in 2012 and 2013 in yesterday's article that you will want to read.
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