Tanker Tidbits (2/3/15)

Some news about the tanker biz from the last few weeks.

Tankers in Australia. In December 20143, two Next-Generation Tankers went on contract in Australia: Conair’s RJ-85 and Coulson’s C-130 Q. Bill Gabbert wrote about this on his Fire Aviation Blog on December 14, 2014 and December 16, 2014. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation covered the first drops of the C-130 and the RJ-85 in an article on December 16, 2014

Bill Gabbert of Fire Aviation wrote an interesting and must read article on January 21st updating the status of USFS C-130s. As I understand it, the C-130s are government owned but will be contractor operated with maintenance provided by the U.S. Air Force.

There is $65 million for US Forest Service wildland firefighting air tankers included in the fiscal 2015 spending bill that was passed by Congress in December 2014. There is speculation that these funds might be used by the US Forest Service to purchase a new airtanker. For further coverage and discussion see Bill Gabbert’s Fire Aviation article (12/16/14) and E & E Publishing (January 2015).

Coulson Aviation USA discusses upgrades to their tanker fleet in an article on bclocal news (11/20/14).