Watch a DC-10 skirt the mountain tops to fight wildfires in Southern California

Some skills are needed to fly a “wide body” like that!

The DC-10 Air Tanker is a standard McDonnell Douglas DC-10 airliner that was converted to carry up to 12,000 US gallons (45,000 liters) of water or fire retardant in an exterior belly-mounted tank.

Three such kind of firefighting bombers are operated by the 10 Tanker Air Carrier, under callsign Tanker 910, 911 and 912.

The DC10 Air Tankers (unofficially dubbed “Supertankers”) are based at the Airtanker base San Bernardino International Airport, to the east of Los Angeles, that is also home to the U.S. Forest Service Tanker, but they are frequently deployed to airports across the Southern California, Nevada and Arizona to fight wildfires during the fire season.

The following video shows Tanker 911 fly at very low altitude over the mountain tops to drop retardant on the Sage Fire, in the Santa Clarita valley, California.

Pretty cool maneuvering, isn’t it?

Top image: screenshot from CBSLA

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About David Cenciotti

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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.