C-119 firebomber

[Neal Nurmi]

This is an experiment with the WIX attachment feature, as well as a post of some C-119 shots that might be of interest.

These are marked "Sept 1979 along the central California coast". I rather vaguely remember driving along and seeing this little airfield -- mostly deserted, with this big ugly slug of an airplane sitting there. There were a couple of guys sitting around playing cards in a little office next to the hangar and borate tanks and fuel area. I asked if I could take some pictures of the airplane, and they said that would be fine. So, owned by Hemet Flying service -- Tanker # unknown and airport unknown.

The bumper sticker below the Hemet Valley logo reads "I'm a firefighter -- pull my hose".

If you click on the attachment you get a better version of the image.

After a while one of the guys noticed my tripod and fancy camera and came out to ask if I'd like to look around the inside. I thought it was interesting to see the big tanks just bolted into the cargo area, with plenty of space to walk around in there. I guess water is heavier than the stuff they carried around in service usage.

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[Neal Nurmi]

So then a year later I was driving one of several 2 lane highways through the mountains north of Chino. I used to go to LA that way occasionally -- I don't much like freeways and back in the day I never saw cops up there so I could drive those winding roads the way I wanted to. One day I came around a ridge and saw smoke, and some flames popping up in a little canyon not far from the road. No CHP or Cal Fire or any such around -- just a quiet day with me and the rapidly spreading fire. Then I heard a noise, and suddenly the action became intense.

A C-119 appeared, and then the spotter plane/guide dog. Looks like an early Baby Baron, with his nose gear doors open...

There will be a couple more in the next post.

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[Neal Nurmi]

soon the -119 reappeared, and the retardent came down...

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[phil65]

Nice photo's......

Phil

[Neal Nurmi]

Thank you, Phil. How do you like the WIX attachment system compared to the way I've previously been linking to a somewhat larger file from Flikr? Do you have a preference for one way or the other?

[phil65]

I like the smaller photo's.

Phil

[Stoney]

Neal
That reminds me of when I lived in Shingle Springs, CA in '84 and the C-119s were fighting a fire between me and Placerville. I was sitting on my deck and had a good view of them, I think there were 4 of them, but that's to long ago to remember everything.

[Neal Nurmi]

Yeah, I used to drive the back roads of California a lot back in the late 70s and 80s, and there were a lot of C-119s around right up til they were grounded. Used to be a lot of Stoofs for a while too, at those smaller fire bases out there. Boy that's suddenly a long time ago...

[Michel Lemieux]

How do you like the WIX attachment system

How did you do that Neal? Tks for sharing.

[Neal Nurmi]

Hello Michael

If you look below the message section of the "reply" screen you will see an "Upload attachment" section. Hitting "Choose File" takes you into your own files. Pick one and hit "open" and the photo is on WIX. Then you have to hit "Add the File" to add the image to your post. The WIX software will not resize your image, as far as I can tell, so your chosen image has to have a long dimension no more than 1020 pixels -- all my images for the net are larger than that so I have to go through an extra resizing step to use the WIX attachment feature, but it does allow me to avoid FlikR, which I distrust.

Hope this helps -- ask again if you have trouble with the system. It's quite straightforward once you do it a couple of times.

And also remember that this places a degraded thumbnail in the main message -- you have to click on the thumbnail to get a better look at it.

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[sledge39]

Neal...you were shure in the right place at the right time to get those "tanker 81" retardant drop shots.

Here's "Tanker 81" N13743 at Hemet 28 July 1980.

posted via https://postimages.org/

[Malo 1]

No flap landing or take off ?

[sledge39]

Malo 1
Post subject: Re: C-119 firebomber
PostPosted: Sun Dec 06, 2020 4:59 pm
No flap landing or take off ?


... takeoff with a retardant load ...

[Larry Kraus]

I checked both the C-119B (as in the picture of Tanker 81) and the C-119G (like those flown by H&P) and both manuals recommend using no flaps for normal take-offs because of extra drag if an engine fails shortly after take-off.

This is from the C-119G manual and the note is near the top of the left hand column

D4556147-B41A-4A60-8B75-8B925788A1B0 by tanker622001, on Flickr

This is from the C-119B manual. Look for item P in the right hand column which says about the same thing. There was a take-off setting for the flaps that was approximately 14Degees and recommended only for short field take-offs due to the same drag concerns.

B20D85E8-9A6F-4122-8394-DD2E7BEC1791 by tanker622001, on Flickr

I flew as co-pilot for about 10 hours in a couple of H&P’s C-119s near the end of the 1981 Alaska Fish Haul when the regular c/p needed a few days off.

C-119G N8093 my C-117D/R4D-8 N8538R and C-119L N3003 at Anchorage in 1981. Both Boxcars had STC’s making them C-119G-3Es (for 3 engine). I flew about 150 hours total in the Doug, mainly on the Fish haul and a few hours in each of these Boxcars. I’ll have to make a thread on my Fish Haul experience one of these days. It offered excellent opportunities to kill yourself, but was a definite adventure.

B9968E9D-84BE-424B-9F2E-17A4AEEB1561 by tanker622001, on Flickr

[Malo 1]

Thanks Larry.