Best Firefighting Aircraft - 4. Airbus C295W: Active in Ukraine, this aircraft has versatile firefighting capabilities with a record of 31 successful operations. C295 water bomb comes equipped with two internal tanks that can carry 7,000 liters of water or fire retardant.
The aircraft can also perform various tasks, such as parachute and cargo dropping, electronic signals intelligence, medical evacuation, and maritime patrol. Sheehy: When you look at them, they don't necessarily look like they'd be an aerobatic or stunt plane.
Best Firefighting Aircraft
We're taking a plane almost the size of a C-130, we're flying it into extremely narrow canyons, very low altitude, banking high-g turns at a high rate of turn. Flying an aircraft this big, that low, in that dangerous of an environment is very rare.
Sheehy: Although the sticker price on the aircraft is very expensive, it can deliver 150,000 gallons in one service day, compared to a more traditional tanker that can often only do a small fraction of that.
It's actually the most cost-effective aerial-firefighting asset. Narrator: The Scooper is so nimble because of its flight-control surfaces, or aerodynamic devices that pilots use to adjust and control the aircraft. On any plane, the main control surfaces are the ailerons, which control the plane's roll;
the rudder, which controls yaw, or the aircraft's direction; and elevators, which control the aircraft's pitch. And in the case of the Super Scooper, those flight-control surfaces are supersized. Turner: It's a very flashy paint job on these aircraft, and it's one of the questions we're asked quite often, is, why is it painted the way it is?
The goal is to be visible in this super-dense smoke. It's a very action-packed circuit when these guys are fighting the fires, and safety is the ultimate goal. 6. Beriev Be-200: The Be-200 can take off and land on the water while carrying 12,000 liters of water.
Two of these Russian Jet warriors helped to fight a devastating forest fire in Greece in 2007. It has four retractable water scoops that can load 12 tons (26,000 lb) of water in 14 seconds. Forest fires have become more and more common as climate complexities increase.
Complex socio-economic factors also lead to people being affected by smoke, debris flows, and other wildfire effects. The best means to control or extinguish wildfires is through aerial firefighting aircraft. Sheehy: In the '50s and '60s, almost all the aircraft used to fight fires were retired or salvaged World War II aircraft.
Tanks were strapped to the middle, and they were used in a very haphazard, provisional manner. Sheehy: Once the aircraft is full and the tanks are full, you retract the probes. There is a noticeable surge in the aircraft when those probes go up.
Get the aircraft back up to speed and take off. Sheehy: The next ridgeline for aerial firefighting is going to be data. It's going to be understanding what the fire is doing, where it's going, where it's coming from, and being able to share that data with as wide a population as possible.
That can better inform our aerial response, better inform the ground response, and make sure that those citizens affected by the incident are given the best information possible to protect themselves, their families, and their livelihood.
A pressurized system gives the plane's three crew members precise control over how quickly they can spray water and retardant, allowing them to better target incendiary spots from about 250 feet above the fire. The goal is to make towering flames more manageable for firefighters on the ground.
Narrator: The CL-415 Enhanced Aerial Firefighter can scoop and drop 1,400 gallons of water on wildfires in a matter of minutes. Compare that to this 1970s plane, which could only drop 200 gallons of water at a time.
3. DC 10 Air Tanker: This wide-body aircraft can carry 45,000 liters of water or fire retardant and discharge it in only eight seconds. The U.S. The government has deployed this aircraft all over the country due to frequent forest fires.
It is the only aerial firefighting aircraft with such a massive holding capacity. Narrator: Super Scoopers revolutionized aerial firefighting, and Insider got an up-close look with Bridger Aerospace to see how this aircraft is tailor-made to fight fires.
Airplanes have been used to fight wildfires for almost 100 years, but early attempts weren't nearly as effective. Sheehy: These things are extremely durable. You never want to hit anything with them, of course, but if it's ash or debris being pushed up through the thermals of the fire, these engines are going to chew right through that and keep running.
Narrator: That's why this rudder is 25 square feet larger than that of a Boeing 737-900, even though the Super Scooper is 10 feet shorter and half as long. This is crucial for the Scooper. It needs to slow down to 90 knots, or just over 100 miles per hour, to perform a scoop.
That's almost half the aircraft's standard cruising speed. The Colorado Springs–based Global SuperTanker may be the world's largest firefighting aircraft, but that doesn't mean it's slow: The Boeing 747-400 can travel 575 mph, enabling it to reach anywhere in North America in less than four and a half hours
and almost any location around the globe in fewer than 20. Those aren't the only impressive facts related to the jumbo jet, though. As wildfire season heats up, we gathered the details on every blaze's worst nightmare.
Farrell: So, when we're lining up for a drop, the air attack will get us on target. They're in contact with the folks on the ground, who are requesting the water. We're factoring in the terrain, the wind, our altitude for when we need to press the button to make the drop.
5. Lockheed C-130 Hercules: The C-130 of the U.S. Airforce made headlines back in 2012 when it crashed while fighting a wildfire in South Dakota. It has a massive capacity of 15,000 liters of water (refillable in no more than 12 minutes).
Sheehy: That's important, because when you're flying slow and big, you need to have a lot of aileron area, a lot of elevator area to be able to move that aircraft as quickly as you need to at those low speeds.
The Global SuperTanker has completed 406 missions during its four years of operation. That includes 149 trips in 2019 alone to help the Bolivian government control flames in the Amazon. The plane has also made journeys to other far-off locales like Israel, as well as some closer to home in Washington and California.
1. Air Tractor AT-802: Air Tractor's AT-802 is a multi-purpose single-engine aircraft that has completed 25 years of successful operation. With a water-carrying capacity of 3100 liters, AT-802 can take off from land and water. It also comes with floats that can scoop 130 liters of water from a lake or river.
Sheehy: The way the aircraft picks up water, as it does not stop or suck it up, there's no vacuum, it scoops it. And it scoops it through what you see here, two probes on either side of the keel of the aircraft, about the size of your hands put together, and as soon as you hit the water, they catch.
You can feel it in the cockpit. You've got to be ready for that catch with the yoke. Narrator: But the Super Scooper's high-lift wing and turboprop engines allow it to attack forest fires from a lower altitude and speed than other firefighting aircraft.
While planes like the 747 Supertanker and DC-10 make drops from between 200 and 800 feet, the Super Scooper can do so from as low as 100 feet above a fire. During a single mission, the massive plane, which has been designated as a Very Large Airtanker by the U.S.
Forest Service, can release 19,200 gallons of water and a lot of fire retardant. It would take a jet with the next largest classification, Large Airtanker, seven trips to deliver the same amount. There are many different types of civilian and military aircraft that have been repurposed to fight forest fires.
Some of these have been completely remodeled to perform low-dive maneuvers and store water. Watching an aircraft dump an entire lake's worth of water on a fire is quite satisfying. So let's watch some of these fantastic aircraft in action.
Sheehy: When you're fighting fire at low altitude, flying through mountains and smoke and trees, having the ability to quickly adjust to terrain variations, other aircraft in the area, or obstacles that emerge through the smoke is very important.
It took Cliff Hale 16 years to turn the retired 747-400 into a firefighting machine. He bought the plane in 2000 while chief pilot at Evergreen International Aviation. Financial woes stymied his plans until Global SuperTanker Services, run by firefighting-by-air veterans (including Hale), bought and finished fixing it in 2016. The firm contracts with state and federal governments to support wildfire suppression.
2. Bombardier 415: This Canadian aircraft, previously known as Canadair CL-415, is a famous amphibious water bomber worldwide. It stands out for its ability to load 6,100 liters of water in 12 seconds. It can also perform various other roles, such as search and rescue and utility transport.
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