Good Morning, Oppo

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 09/11/2020 at 09:05 • Filed to: good morning oppo

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A retired warbird, fighting fires instead of subs . Could use a few of these now.

Not a really well known aircraft, this is the Grumman AF-2. It was part of a submarine hunter-killer team known collectively as the Grumman Guardian. One aircraft carried the radar, while the other carried the weapons.

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facw > ttyymmnn 09/11/2020 at 09:26

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There is of course the open question as to whether extremely expensive aerial firefighting is actually cost effective. There are reasons to believe it mainly serves as a highly visible show of doing something in the face of these huge fires. Here’s an older story, but I don’t think the politics have changed much. https://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-wildfires29-2008jul29-story.html

The Forest Service finally released their long-delayed report (in response to a GAO review that showed we had no idea what we getting for our half a billion dollars annual federal spending), but while it provides more data, it only considers effectiveness between aircraft type, and doesn’t consider cost at all, or whether these funds would be better spent on non-plane assets). It also doesn’t make any recommendations beyond continuing to collect and use the data. It does have a large appendix showing the aircraft used for firefighting which is cool (though the pictures are tiny) https://www.fs.usda.gov/sites/default/files/2020-08/08242020_afue_final_report.pdf

And some commentary on the report:  https://fireaviation.com/2020/08/21/forest-service-releases-aerial-firefighting-use-and-effectiveness-report/

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > facw 09/11/2020 at 10:29

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I’ve heard through the rumor mill that aerial fire fighting in most situations is basically useless. 

Grindintosecond > facw 09/11/2020 at 10:32

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The Martin Mars (7,200 gallons) still holds the record for the most dropped per hour of any firefighting plane ever fielded. Because it was a giant flying boat that didnt have to land, shut down and wait for a truck to refill it. Just skim the water and off to drop again. But, it isnt maintainable any more so its not actively used. Even the tanker-10's, nor the supert anker 747 can effectively drop as much as efficientely. Everything flying today carrys 3,500 gallons or less aside from the 747 and dc-10. That includes the c-130, 737, md-80, bae-146 as well....

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > ttyymmnn 09/11/2020 at 10:53

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And a tigercat in the background!

ttyymmnn > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 09/11/2020 at 11:04

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Yup. They also flew old Avengers as firefighters.