the ideal fire/water bomber?

"Private" wrote

Watching a team of CL-215/415s doing circuits is really impressive, they
are much more graceful in the air than they look on the ground or in the
video Dave linked. Real retardant is more effective than plain water but
the CL-215/415 can deliver a lot of plain water. They seem to be able to
work out of quite small lakes.
http://ww.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=119

They are also capable of adding a chemical to the water they scoop, to make
it fire retardant, and usually do.

Interesting thing is that the whole plane (I'm only intimately familiar with
the 215, but I am pretty sure that the 415 is the same in this regard) uses
all manual power for all of the control surfaces except the flaps. They use
muscle power at low speeds, then as speed builds, a spring arrangement lets
aerodynamically boosted tabs move the control surfaces. I was surprised to
learn that.

The whole theory of the plane's design was that it should be simple, and
reliable, and easily maintained in the field without a big support structure
and staff. It was also designed to be very maneuverable, and for it's size,
it is, and needs to be to get into small lakes and narrow canyons.
--
Jim in NC