Aerial firefighter is huge

By Dan Sorenson

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

To learn more Bombardier 415 — Twin-engine turboprop amphibian

Capacity: 1,600 gallons water, can be mixed with retardant in flight

Operation: Can pick up full load in 12 seconds by skimming body of water at roughly 70 mph

Web site: www.bombardier.com

Evergreen Supertanker — Modified Boeing 747-200

Capacity: 20,000 gallons water or retardant slurry

Operation: Can be refilled and back in the air in 35 minutes

Web site: www.evergreen aviation.com/supertanker/

Two Tucson-area aerospace companies are taking two very different approaches to aerial firefighting:

One can scoop up water without landing. The other can bring its own pond.

Bombardier Aerospace's 415, an amphibious plane with two turboprop engines, can scoop up 1,600 gallons of water in 12 seconds while skimming at 70 miles per hour across a lake, along a river or even in the ocean — and mix it with foaming chemicals before dropping it on a fire.

A 415 that just rolled out of Bombardier's Canadian factory is at the company's service center at Tucson International Airport for a brilliant red and yellow paint job before it is flown to its new owner, the government of Spain.

The boat-hulled plane isn't widely used in the United States, but has sold well in Spain, France, Greece and Italy, for firefighting and in some cases, search and rescue work, said Josh Bergeron, an avionics technician from Bombardier's Canadian headquarters.

Although it might be able to fill its tanks at a small Southern Arizona lake, it's not likely that 415s will see duty here. They're mostly used in coastal areas, or places with plentiful lakes and rivers.

The odd-looking plane could be leaving for its island-hopping trip to Spain in as little as two weeks.

"Supertanker" readied

Meanwhile, Evergreen International Aviation's Supertanker, based on a Boeing 747-200 air freighter is in Evergreen's huge Pinal Air Park hanger for a "D check," the major inspection the planes must go through every couple years.

It's just back from a nationwide tour to drum up support for a Forest Service contract. It's expected to be ready for duty in early August, said Bob McAndrew, president of Evergreen Supertanker Services Inc..

The Supertanker holds more than 20,000 gallons of water or fire-retardant foam, said McAndrew. And rather than using gravity to dump it on the target area, he said pressure tanks in the 747 blast the water from the belly of the plane.

That is an advantage, in terms of both accuracy and safety, said McAndrew.

And safety is what's driving the Supertanker project.

Crashes in 2002 of two old military planes — a C-130 and a PB4Y-2 amphibian that had been converted to air-tanker duty — drove the U.S. government to ground most of the aging tanker fleet. In both cases, wings failed, killing the crews.

McAndrew said the technique of making a bombing run — diving toward the target area and releasing the load as the plane pulls up — is stressful on aircraft, many of which date back to World War II and the 1950s.

He said the Supertanker's pressurized system lets it push the load out, but without any additional stress on the aircraft.

Old bombers grounded

Evergreen, an Oregon-based company that operates the Evergreen Aviation Center at Pinal Air Park just west of Interstate 10 and north of the Pima/Pinal County line, hopes to contract with the Forest Service for the end of this year's fire season and build two more planes at its Pinal operation for the 2007 season.

McAndrew estimates Evergreen has close to $40 million in the Supertanker project, but said the cost of subsequent planes would be much lower because the research, engineering, development and promotional work has been done.

Some smaller water bombers, based on a crop- duster manufactured in Texas, have been stationed at Southern Arizona airfields during recent fire seasons.

Although much of the older converted-military water bomber fleet was grounded after the 2002 crashes, there are enough air tankers available for the current fire season in Arizona and the Southwest, said Scott Curtis, the Forest Service's acting National Aviation Operations Officer, in Boise, Idaho.

"We have nine or 10 P-3s (converted military planes) that are viable," and under contract throughout the U.S. to the Forest Service, Curtis said.

Choppers, dusters used

The Forest Service also has contracts for a number of helicopters, including a huge SkyCrane owned by Evergreen, and a number of Single-Engine Air Tankers, or SEATs — crop- duster-type, single-engine planes.

Evergreen's Supertanker, a version of the wide-body, four-engine plane that was until recently the largest commercial airliner in the world, needs an 8,000-foot, heavy-duty runway to land and take off.

But Evergreen points to its longer range both to answer that criticism and to point out that the plane can respond quickly — just under 600 mph — from longer distances than the smaller and much slower planes.

Once on the ground, he said it can be refilled and back in the air in 35 minutes.

The Supertanker may not just carry more water, but also change the way fires are fought, said McAndrew. He said there is interest among Forest Service officials in using it to drop water behind a fire line

He said the thinking is that the draft caused by the fire might suck the Supertanker's miniature rainstorm into the fire, actually raising the humidity and putting the fire out that way rather than dousing the ground in front of the fire.

TECH FILE