DC-10s as Water Bombers?

"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message ...

To be successful as a water bomber, an aircraft
has to be able to maneuver in tight quarters, take high Gs, and maybe deal
with "battle damage" from hitting tree tops or other sources.

But of course, the nature of a water load and the nature of a bomb load
are a bit different. Aircraft designed as Tankers might be a better idea
(of which the DC-10 already has a variant).

Peter Duniho wrote:

Maybe you should share your
expertise with those operating such airplanes as the Martin Mars (originally
designed as a military troop transport, now used *only* for fire fighting)

The Mars was originally designed as a reconnaissance bomber, filling the role
of the Catalina. It semms, however, that none of the original bomber versions
were ever built. Martin then designed a transport version of the plane, but
orders for it were reduced with the end of WW II, and only five transport
versions were built. Four of them served well as transports during Korea. So,
while it's true that the existing aircraft were based on a bomber design, it is
equally true that all Mars aircraft produced were designed originally as
transports.

Source: "Wings Over Water", David Oliver.

George Patterson
If you're not part of the solution, you can make a lot of money prolonging
the problem.

On 9 Nov 2003 18:18:20 -0800
(Verbs Under My Gel) wrote:

"R. Hubbell" wrote in message news:e7yrb.11486
Not familiar with that plane, will have to look into it. Are there many left?
Where do they fly from?


Take a look at:
http://www.fire.ca.gov/FireEmergency...n/Aviation.asp


Now that S2T looks like a plane well suited as a fire bomber. I wonder if
they're concerned at all about the extra beating they took from carrier
operations? It seems to me that at only 1,200 gallons the trade-off is
that they can get in and out of tight spots and they can get back from
refills much quicker with those twin turbines.


R. Hubbell

"R. Hubbell" wrote:


We had one come home last year with the top two feet of an 8" diameter fir tree

That takes some doing, 8" fir trees are pretty sturdy.

True, but the top two feet of such a tree is not a lot tougher than
the top two feet of a 2" (trunk diameter) tree. And for that matter,
not a lot less tough than the top 2 feet of a giant sequoia! I doubt
if he meant that the tree was 8" in diameter two feet from the top --
those are generally described as utility poles, not trees g.
--
Alex
Make the obvious change in the return address to reply by email.

Pete (I think it's your post?)


Need to add a few pennies.


On Sun, 9 Nov 2003 11:53:52 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:

"R. Hubbell" wrote in message
news:gUsrb.10899$7B2.8992@fed1read04...
I don't know anything about that plane but I do know that any plane that
was designed for passenger carrying doesn't make a great platform for
delivering fire retardants.

You "know" that? How do you "know" that? Maybe you should share your
expertise with those operating such airplanes as the Martin Mars (originally
designed as a military troop transport, now used *only* for fire fighting)
and the C-130 (commonly used to carry passengers). Against all odds
(apparently) those airplanes have seen great success as water bombers, as
have other "passenger" aircraft (the DC-6 comes to mind).


C-130 is a cargo plane and so structurally designed by Lockheed. To
haul passengers they have canvas seats that fold down from walls of
cargo area. The floor is strong enough (they carry fighting vehicles
in the cargo area) they can just build a tank and tie in the cargo
area with the ramp open and nozzles on the tank(s) they can air drop
the 'water'. Easy, cheap conversion. Think I have also seen some
commercial conversions with the nozzles built into the fuselage and
they can drop with the ramp closed.

There are some ANG and AFR C-130's that have the ability to fight
fires. There are six MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System)
systems (in the whole US) that can be used to configure birds in two
Squadrons (one ANG and one AFR) for fire fighting. System holds 3000
gallons and dumps over the open ramp. They are not used very often
(for political reasons) as the laws say that Fire Fighting Companies
must be hired first before any Military birds are used. That's so the
Military don't take any jobs away from civilians.

Since you didn't know this from your post apparently, you now do. All
can be validated on the Internet with a little searching.

Regarding the Mars, read the following extracted from Mars history.

Quote
Martin continued test flights on the aircraft until November 1942,
when the Old Lady was passed on to the Navy. By this time the Navy had
decided that big lumbering easy-target patrol bombers were not such a
good idea after all, and the flying boat was converted to a cargo
aircraft before it was handed over. All the turrets and guns, bomb
bays, and armor plate were removed, cargo-loading hatches and
cargo-loading equipment were installed, and the DECKING WAS
REINFORCED. The modified aircraft was designated XPB2M-1R.
Unquote

You can see that these aircraft were converted to a cargo
configuration by Martin before delivering to the Navy. Further
conversion to a fire fighting airplane would be easy (cheap) since
they are structurally cargo aircraft.

Passenger aircraft can be converted to haul 'water' but doing so is
not very cost effective due to the major remanufacturing required.

Ask Fedex what it costs them to convert a passenger aircraft taken out
of service by the airlines to a cargo configuration so they can load
the pallets to haul their packages. Have seen some figures in AW & ST
of several million dollars per airframe to remanufacture..

Maybe this info will stop the finger pointing and cat and dog fight
on this thread?

Bottom line is to work to get equipment to drop water/retardent to
control/ put out forest fires. Dirty, dangerous work.

Local well know duster was killed working on a fire out west a couple
of years ago when he hit a wire in a canyon. Looked back in the smoke
to check his drop and zap. His partner (friend of mine) quit dusting
and shut down their operation here. He died less that a year later of
cancer ( Guess when your times up it's up.


Big John


Don't have all the specifics but apparently it's the
differences in the "cargo" that makes them poor for fire duty.

How can you "know" what you claim to know, and yet not have the specifics?
You seem to have a pretty low threshold for "knowing" something.

There has been some debate recently on this topic and in a perfect world the planes
should be designed as retardant delivery platforms from the ground up.

Sure, in a perfect world EVERY airplane would be designed from the ground up
for the specific purpose for which it will eventually be used. That goes
without saying.

But we don't live in a perfect world. It turns out that passenger aircraft
ARE quite capable of being converted to water bombers, they perform just
fine as such, and it's often more economical to operate such an airplane
rather than a purpose-built water bomber (I can only think of two
purpose-built water bombers off the top of my head, and you can bet they are
expensive).

(no pun intended)

I didn't see anything even resembling a pun. I guess you're off the hook on
that one.

Pete

Pete

What about the:

737
757
767
7E7

I don't know of any of these that have a military counterpart.

Big John

If they quit fighting in Congress they may buy a modified civilian 767
as a tanker?

If they do it's a bad decission as the 767 doesn't have the range or
load to project air power around the world. For example it will take
two 767's to refuel the same gallons as a single KC-135.


On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:14:12 -0800, "Peter Duniho"
wrote:

"Paul Tomblin" wrote in message
...
I'm sure the designers of the DC-10 and 747 would be extremely surprised
to hear that.

I doubt that they would. I can't speak directly to the DC-10, but my
history book on Boeing tracks the lineage of all of the Boeing aircraft, and
at each step along the way, each new aircraft borrows heavily from the
previously built aircraft. In many cases, the passenger aircraft projects
started as military contracts.

Pete

G.R.

What kind of a Military tanker???

Who refueled?

It's so slow I don't think the early jets, when they started being
eqipped with refueling probes, could slow down enought to refuel from
the Mars.

Don't know of any prop Fighters that ever had air refueling
capability.

Know the B-47 and B-52 could not refuel from the Mars. Nor did they
ever try to.

Big John


On Sun, 09 Nov 2003 23:26:12 -0500, "G.R. Patterson III"
wrote:



"R. Hubbell" wrote:

I don't know anything about that plane but I do know that any plane that was
designed for passenger carrying doesn't make a great platform for delivering
fire retardants.

You know this how? The miltary has been using that plane as a tanker for
decades. It should make a fine fire bomber.

George Patterson
If you're not part of the solution, you can make a lot of money prolonging
the problem.

Big John wrote:

What kind of a Military tanker???

From the tone of your post, it seems you think I claimed the Mars was used as
a tanker. I was talking about the DC-10.

The DC-10 was and is used as a tanker. I do not remember the military
designation, but our flying club was granted a tour of one at McGuire AFB two
years ago. You can also see one in the Harrison Ford movie where the pres gets
hijacked ("Air Force One??).

George Patterson
If you're not part of the solution, you can make a lot of money prolonging
the problem.

In article , Big John
wrote:


If they quit fighting in Congress they may buy a modified civilian 767
as a tanker?

If they do it's a bad decission as the 767 doesn't have the range or
load to project air power around the world. For example it will take
two 767's to refuel the same gallons as a single KC-135.

I thought the 767 has a higher useful load than the 135. Can
you point to sources?

--
Bob Noel

Bob

Believe it was an article in the rag, AF Times? I just spent 30
minutes looking using Google and can';t find a side by side comparison
of the two birds.

Best I can come up with is a statement that the 767 can down load a
LITTLE more than the 135. Then they go on to say the difference is
about 20% more.

That figure is suspect to me since I can't find a side by side set of
figures. Each bird has a max TO weight that includes both off load
fuel and mission fuel. Since the bird can use either tankage the
length of the mission determines how much they can off load. So
without side by side figures you could spec the 135 for a long mission
which would cut down on it's off load and spec the 767 for a short
mission which would give it more fuel to download. In this cat and dog
fight in Washington it would not surprise me to see those figures
*******ized a lot by the politicians who have a dog in the fight.

Need those figures to be able to compare apples with apples.

There's lots of politics in this procurement so you will hear many PR
figures that may not be supportable in operation since they will be
put out to sell project.

If anyone can find apples and apples would be interested in seeing the
figures.

Big John


On Wed, 12 Nov 2003 03:32:47 GMT, Bob Noel
wrote:

In article , Big John
wrote:


If they quit fighting in Congress they may buy a modified civilian 767
as a tanker?

If they do it's a bad decission as the 767 doesn't have the range or
load to project air power around the world. For example it will take
two 767's to refuel the same gallons as a single KC-135.

I thought the 767 has a higher useful load than the 135. Can
you point to sources?