Air attack in CO

Thanks to our friends in Canada for coming south to help us out. You are the best.

I understand from reading Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today that the USFS has activated a call when needed contract for one of the DC-10 tankers, and Canada has loaned us three more CV-580 tankers.

Conair Convair 580 Tanker (Pt 2) - pre-flight briefing

Sit in on pre-flight briefing departure briefing between Conair pilots Chris Baldwin in the left seat and Jeff Broussseau in the right seat prior to a practice fire bombing run over the Abbotsford International Airport in April 2011.

I don't exactly know if all pre-flight briefings in the tanker biz are this long (8 to 9 minutes). But, I certainly learned a lot about what is making a retardant drop on a fire and I think you will too.

Conair Convair 580/600 airtankers (part 1)

I don't know the specifics, but I do know that the US Forest Service has contracted (or leased) three Convair 580/600 tankers from Conair, a Canadian company. I don't know exactly when the deal was finalized, but it was sometime after the USFS terminated its contract with Aero Union. Conair contracts with the Alaska Division of Forestry for Convair 580 tankers (I think), it may be these tankers that are currently under contract with the USFS. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today reported on the Convairs here.

I thought I'd provide some specifications for you. I'd like to thank a friend who helped me by providing me with some specifications for the Convair 580's from the American Museum of Aviation see their page on the Convair 580 technical specifications, I am only including some of the specs here, you will want to refer to the link I provided for more information:

Length: 81 feet 6 inches
wing span: 105 feet 4 inches
max take off weight: 58,156 lbs
max landing weight: 52,000 lbs
normal cruising speed: 325 mph or 282 knots
landing speed: 125 mph or 110 knots
engines: 2 Allison 501D13D rated at 3,800 eshp ea.

I think, but am not sure that the engines on the Convair 580's, the Allison's, are the same as on the P-3's and that they are turbo props. Interesting, huh?

When I knew that I wanted to write an article or two about the Convair 580's, I had it in my head that the retardant capacity of these birds is 2,000 gallons in ideal conditions. Higher temps at high elevation airports will require a lower amount of retardant. The same friend that I referred to earlier sent me a link to a power point presentation found on the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Neighborhood Discussion Center on loading the Convair 580's with retardant, go here download the file which will require Power Point or a presentation program that reads Power Point (I use Keynote on my Mac). I should warn you that I had some trouble downloading the file but was successful the second time around. Here is some useful information that you will find  on this power point presentation:

• A full load is 18,000 lbs or 2,000 gallons (assuming that retardant weighs 9 lbs per gallon). The full load may vary depending on the weight of the retardant use.
• The tank system used on the Convair 580's is the RADS II constant flow retardant tank system. This system is computer controlled and computer activated. As I understand it, the crew dials in the requested coverage level, and the two tank doors on the bottom of the tanker open just enough to let out the retardant at the desired coverage level.

Now, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I suspected that in its hey day, Aero Union may have had something to do with the RADS II retardant tank system. So, I went to the Aero Union Corp. homepage and found a webpage on Aerial Firefighting Systems _ Constant Flow Delivery Systems, and clicked on the link that said "RADS II for the P-3/L-188 (a pdf file on the RADS II tank system) and lo and behold, I find out that Aero Union designed a RADS II retardant tank for the Convair 580. Interesting, huh?