A cool video shows the DC10 Air Tanker (known as “Supertanker”) performing a nose dive (and subsequent high-G load pull-up) to drop fire retardant over a mountain.
Note the “pathfinder” King Air flying ahead of the DC-10 to point the drop zone for the tanker.
Update:
Unfortunately the video was removed after we posted this story, but the top screenshots gives an idea of the scene.
David Cenciotti is a journalist based in Rome, Italy. He is the Founder and Editor of “The Aviationist”, one of the world’s most famous and read military aviation blogs. Since 1996, he has written for major worldwide magazines, including Air Forces Monthly, Combat Aircraft, and many others, covering aviation, defense, war, industry, intelligence, crime and cyberwar. He has reported from the U.S., Europe, Australia and Syria, and flown several combat planes with different air forces. He is a former 2nd Lt. of the Italian Air Force, a private pilot and a graduate in Computer Engineering. He has written five books and contributed to many more ones.
The versatile C-27J cargo aircraft will be able to perform this mission thanks to the roll-on/roll off MAFFS system. Leonardo unveiled on its website a new firefighting configuration that will further expand the mission set […]
Canadair CL-415 water bomber aircraft are not only used to support ground firefighting activities in case of forest fires. The “Superscooper” planes can be extremely useful when you need to extinguish fire following a car […]
All Available Airborne Fire Fighting Assets Pressed into Service, Fires Continue. A massive combined military and contract air operation has been flying over the U.S. state of California this week in attempts to contain and […]
7 Comments
Oh, this is a video of a fire bombing DC-10. With just the audio it sounded like, um…something else…
Why is he dropping the retardant on the mountain ridge, and not on the fire itself?
Trying to keep the fire from jumping the top of the ridge?
To prevent the fire from spreading any further, as it (hopefully) won’t be able to burn the trees that are now covered in retardant.
It’s more about stopping the fire from getting any bigger than putting it out. As soon as it’s burned all the trees it’ll go out by it’s self.
It makes a fire break.
Take a look at the wind. Retardant will drift over the fire ensuring a better ‘kill’.
Oh, this is a video of a fire bombing DC-10. With just the audio it sounded like, um…something else…
Why is he dropping the retardant on the mountain ridge, and not on the fire itself?
Trying to keep the fire from jumping the top of the ridge?
To prevent the fire from spreading any further, as it (hopefully) won’t be able to burn the trees that are now covered in retardant.
It’s more about stopping the fire from getting any bigger than putting it out. As soon as it’s burned all the trees it’ll go out by it’s self.
It makes a fire break.
Take a look at the wind. Retardant will drift over the fire ensuring a better ‘kill’.
Cool video, but he completely missed the fire.