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).

2024 Wildfire Season: Airtanker Contractors Continued Training for Upcoming Wildfire Season

 I shared last Friday that Neptune Aviation's pilots were engaged in training before going on contract for the upcoming wildfire season. Unfortunately, I know no specific timetables and the like of when tanker and helicopter contractors are doing their training, spring maintenance and the like in what air tanker and  preparation for the wildfire season. However, thanks to following social media, in this case Facebook, I have an idea of what some of the contractors are doing. I do appreciate when companies are able to share on Facebook, but understand that the important thing is taking care of their aircraft and their pilots and posting to social media or elsewhere is not always possible. Nor do I have access to a listing of when airtankers are going on contract with the US Forest Service, when I do have this information, I will make a post to this blog.

Today I share two Facebook posts about air tanker contractors that were engaged in training for the upcoming wildfire season a week or two ago.

I am not able to embed a video clip from 10 Tanker highlighting training they were doing to prepare for the wildfire season, but I invite you to go to 10 Tanker's post on Facebook to look for yourself.share first this short video clip from 10 Tanker Air Carrier.

Finally, I share this post from AeroFlite Aerial Firefighting with photos about training for the upcoming wildfire season. AeroFlite has arrangements to use a property near their base in Chico for training runs simulating a wildfire.