Warbird Information Exchange

_________________
Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Join us for the Texas Warbird Report on WarbirdRadio.com!
http://www.facebook.com/WarbirdRadio
Listen at http://www.warbirdradio.com

24 inch cracks? Sounds pretty serious...

So how long before we trade our 50-60 year old P2Vs in for 45-50 year old turbo converted S2Fs, or something similar?

I think the market for converted CV-580's just exploded. I think you'll see CV-580's in service down here before you see more S-2F's converted, especially since the S-2T carries about 1/3 the load of the P2V or CV-580.

From the Wildfire Today article:

“The USFS has put all of their eggs into one basket, with all 11 of their contracted air tankers being the same model, except for the BAe-146 which has interim approval. This is not the first time that all aircraft of the same model have been grounded. The agency could have seen this coming and should have been prepared. Since the two fatal crashes in 2002 which permanently grounded several models of ancient air tankers, the USFS has had 10 years to rebuild the aging fleet, but sat on their hands watching the fleet decay from 44 air tankers to 11, as they were hampered by indecision and analysis paralysis.”

From the local newspaper eight months ago:

“Where firefighters battling blazes are allowed to dump fire retardant in National Forests across the country may be limited under a new U.S. Forest Service proposal.”

“The Forest Service was forced to re-evaluate how it drops more than 8 million gallons of the retardant a year after a 2010 court decision sided with the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics. The employees were concerned the fire retardant was being used in a way that harmed threatened and endangered fish, including one drop in Oregon that killed more than 20,000. Compounds in the retardant such as ammonia and fertilizer are dangerous to fish and other animals.”

“The Forest Service is considering three plans. One is the unlikely option to stop using retardant altogether, another is to continue operating as is does now. The third alternative, the Forest Service prefers, calls for more consideration of threatened and endangered species when dumping the retardant from airplanes.”

“Under that proposal, every national forest in the country would have to create maps of where small, endemic populations of threatened or endangered species exist and drops would not be allowed in those areas. One such map that has already been drawn up in the San Bernardino National Forest made an additional 4 percent of the forest off-limits to retardants. About 38 percent of the forest is all ready off-limits because of restrictions of not being able to dump near waterways.”


Me thinks the USFS is probably doing their best impersonation of Montgomery Burns right now saying, “Ex-cell-ent”.

Forget air drops. Just let the fires burn freely until they burn themselves out. It's nature's way of renewing the land.

(Sarcasm: A free service I offer)

_________________
Dean Hemphill, K5DH
Port Charlotte, Florida

Those fires wouldn't dare hurt those endangered animals, the Gumbit protects them and only man made chemicals are a danger to them.

Honestly, Smokey the Bear was probably one of the worst ideas the Forest Service ever came up with. You gotta have the fire to renew the land and keep the undergrowth in check. Years of suppressing fires and allowing the undergrowth to get to the point of where it is now causes these devastating fires we see today.

_________________
Zane Adams
There I was at 20,000 ft, upside down and out of ammunition.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Join us for the Texas Warbird Report on WarbirdRadio.com!
http://www.facebook.com/WarbirdRadio
Listen at http://www.warbirdradio.com

Actually, even more than that, it's silly greenies that won't let responsible forestry companies to responsible logging. A well managed stand is a lot less of a danger than a "wild" forest full of unmanaged dead trees.

Ryan

_________________
Aerial Photographer with Red Wing Aerial Photography currently based at KRBD and tailwheel CFI.
Websites: Texas Tailwheel Flight Training, DoolittleRaid.com and Lbirds.com.

The horse is prepared against the day of battle: but safety is of the LORD. - Prov. 21:31 - Train, Practice, Trust.