Fire Planes
 

ß íå çíàþ âû çíàåìòå Ðóññêè.

I bet Kerry would buy them if he was president!:D

Не смотрите на меня, я' не знаю

It looks like Pravda carried over the same writing staff from the 80's. If their plane is so impressive and they care so much about the US wild fires, why doesn't Ilyushin loan out a plane for a month as a demonstration?

Что Nader делать?

Does it have a bigger payload than this...?
http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1090604780.jpg

Randy :D

They were going to use this one, but it's full of ***** until next January?


http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1090605923.jpg

Just kidding, couldn't resist.

Nader? You are living in a dream world.

ÿ äóìàþ, âû ó÷èò ðóññêîãî â ñîâåòñêîì ñîþçå.

More true and unbiased words have never been uttered...Comrade.

That article is nothing more than a joke.

Noah, there's a very old Russian joke that goes. . .


Ïðàâäà íåò èçâåñòèÿ é èçâåñòèÿ íåò Ïðàâäà.

Thom MUST know this and must be joking.

edit: Forgive my spelling, it's been a long time.

"There is no news in 'Pravda', and no truth in 'Izvestiya'"

I came across the article while looking up something totally other, but related to firefighting. The subject of fire planes had popped up a few days ago, and in the spirit of political insensitivity, I felt obligated to post it.

There's some definite truth in Thom's article, about the plane anyway..

http://www.waterbomber.com/

The Russians have built some amazing aircraft.. Putin is Bush's buddy now right? Whats wrong with buying some of their planes, if nothing else compares - and nothing else does.

I don't beleive any government agency buys new aircraft for firefighting. Every one I have seen has been military surplus.

Last I heard, CDF uses S-2s and P-3s, USFS uses C-130s.

Maybe Matt will chime in.

Tom

Uh huh.

Let's take a lookie at this cold war bomber, aka the "Candid."

Il-76 MDP: Firefighting conversion of Il-76 demonstrated first in 1990;

up to 44,000 kg (97,000 lb) of water/fire retardant in two cylindrical tanks in hold;

discharge, replenishment and draining systems;

drop zone aiming devices;

up to 384 meteorological cartridges in dispensers for weather modification;

able to water-bomb an area of 500 x 100 m (1,640 x 330 ft), or to carry, and parachute when required, 40 fully equipped firefighters;

all airborne fire equipment (known as VAP-2: dischargeable aviation system; weight 5,000 kg; Il,025 lb) can be installed in standard Il-76, or removed, in 4 hours;

tank replenishment time 10 to 15 minutes; discharge time 6 to 7 seconds, with option of successive discharge of tanks to cover 600 x 80 m (1,970 x 260 ft);

airspeed during discharge 130 to 215 knots (240 to 400 km/h; 150 to 248 mph) at 80 m (260 ft).

So far, so good. What about the runways needed for this a/c?

Well, it's max takeoff weight from an unprepared surface is MD from unprepared surface 157,500 kg (347,225 lb).

Takeoff run: MD, variant 1,700 m (5,580 ft)
Landing, MD variant 900-1,000 m (2,950-3,280 ft)

The promoter's web site is even less optimistic.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1090621088.gif

That's a bunch, more than the old Herc C-130b's.

By the way, due to three crashes of the Hercs, they were all grounded in 2002.

Any of you firebombers know what the surface condition and length of the Air Attack bases are?

Ok, looks like Santa Barbara's got 6052x 150 as the longest runway.

Double tandem gear, there's a weight limit of 245,000 pounds. Too heavy at Max gross. How about empty weight? 89,000 kg x 2.2 = 195,000 pounds. So you could only carry about half the water load, and no fuel, to land at Santa Barbara.

Where are the other Air Attack bases, guys?

Interesting article, Tony. Looks like the USFS came to the same conclusion I did after ten minutes of research.