Monday, June 10, 2024

CL-215/415 "Scoopers"

 One of the aerial tools in the wildfire toolbox are the CL215/415 Scoopers, these are amphibious aircraft specially built to scoop water out of water bodies to fight wildfires. There are at least two companies that fly Scoopers, Bridger Aerospace  and Aeroflite. Bridger has a nice 3D Tour of one of their Scoopers that I hope you can access from Bridger's webpage on Scooper operations, go here for the desktop version, and look for the "access 3D tour link"; I could not access the desktop link on Chrome but could on Safari and Firefox. The link for mobile devices should be here.

I just came across a video from ABC 15 News in Phoenix showcasing Aeroflite's Scooper. I found this report from ABCC 15 on Scooper operations and their benefits to be very informative and I hope that you will enjoy this video, just over 2 minutes. The CL215 and 415 Scoopers from Bridger Aerospace should operate in the same as Aeroflite's. As the video points out, one of the important benefits of Scoopers is that they can scoop water out of a water body near a wildfire, fly the fire and then come back for another load and to the same thing again, as long as needed. ABC 15 Phoenix does have the video on their YouTube channel but I am unable to embed their video, but there is a direct link to video from ABC15Arizona on YouTube if you want other viewing options (report on the Scooper starts at 28 seconds).



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