Every year in Greece we use our CL215 and CL415 fleet to fight countless fires both in Greece and abroad. I have nothing but respect for all the fire fighting pilots of the world. Damn the CL series are just about the most beautiful planes out there.
A few years ago I was reading a book by an English woman who was living in northern Italy, she couldn't understand why, during a forest fire emergency, people became very excited because "the Canadians are coming". She couldn't comprehend why Canadians would be fire fighting in Italy. Of course what was lost in translation was that Canadair aircraft were coming!
the CL-515 is truly a legend, carrying on the well respected Canadair name. For all the CL-515 can do, that really makes it an extremely valuable aircraft to have, not only to fight fires, but perform coast guard duties like search and rescue, and the rescue part actually being literal as it can find stranded sailors or passengers from a ship, then land and rescue them instead of flying in a circle pattern until a helicopter or a boat comes to actually get them out. The capabilities of this aircraft makes Canadians like me very proud of Canadair and Viking.
CL515 is not in sevice yet. CL415 is the most recent model. DeHavilland just announced Production of CL 515 in Calgary with 22 advance orders from Europe. Price around 40 million US to 50 million US depending on kit.
This film is amazing at showing this amazing plane. We vacation (when we can) from Washington state to British Columbia and Alberta a lot. The fire fighters in the sky are an important part of firefighting almost anywhere in the world. As an aside, I saw the Hawaii Mars and Philippine Mars together on the BC side of Lake Ossoyoos packing on supplies. I was heading toward the US/Canadian border at Ossoyoos. I came around my left. All of a sudden the two great planes came into view. This was a while ago but obviously the experience is still with me.
The company I worked for did some work on a CL-215 and two things really stuck out about it: First is how spacious it is inside. Most of the fuselage is empty with two massive pipes for the water intakes and the water tank occupying the centre of the aircraft. And second is how THICK the aluminum is throughout the aircraft! I also thought "built like a tank" when I first saw it up close. Also the actual water intakes are surprising tiny! It's probably the most unique aircraft we worked on
The amount of pounding that airplane takes is horrendous, both in the air because flying through air around fires is very turbulent, but also all the waves it has to pound through when scooping on the water. Thickness = fatigue life
@@WhynottBelieve The Avro Arrow was being developed primarily with government funding as the sole customer. The government pulled that funding and that's why the project died. The only time when the Canadian government is involved in the funding of _these_ planes is when they themselves are the purchaser, but there are other purchasers in other countries. The Canadian government could only cancel those purchases by denying export of the aircraft. This would only happen in the event of specific sanctions.
@@Ostsol and so was Avro, sorry just my dig at conservatives and the fascist freedom train they are selling out to. I have gone on three times and deleted it three times not going to try and change your mind or offend any more than I already have. Fell into the hate platform. My apologies to you and the people who came here to see the planes. I love planes, wish I was a pilot.
its nice to see a "small town" company become a big player, and shots of the Victoria inner harbour in the trainer & when the otter is flying over the harbour. With the increase of fires, Viking is going to have a winner with the 515's almost certainly.
@@inventor121 But they don't use any of them. Strangely, they don't even use the earlier CL-215 or CL-415 in B.C... their only aircraft operating from water is the much smaller Air Tractor AT-802F Fire Boss.
I would like to clarify one thing on this wonderful aircraft. It never has a nickname and just a certification designation, which is CL-215 for the piston engine. And CANADAIR is not the aircraft nickname but the name of the company that design and manufacture it before being bought by Bombardier, which design the CL-415 version equip of Turboprop. Viking new version is the DHC-515 on which CANADAIR have noting to do, its a De Havilland Aircraft Canada ltd aircraft. Also, the people who built them, only use the certification number as nickname; the 215, the 415 and now the 515. So, please do not call them Canadair because, Canadair have design and manufacture too many other extraordinary aircrafts to get limited only to this one.
In some countries Canadair is actually their nickname. Like in France and, I believe, Italy. Like a poster described earlier, crowds there get excited and always exclaim _"the Canadairs are coming"_ when this amazing bird is on the way. Might explain why the narrator & script use that name ? Dunno if there is an "official" nickname though.
Last summer, in Carnon, near Montpellier, I remember seeing the French Canadair flying over the sea to reach a fire that was not far. I still do not understand why the countries have purchased so few. It is now clear that most countries need many more.
I have heard that the only think Viking would need to re launch the production would be a minimum of 20 orders. The West coast states of the USA alone need more than that, and once production is running it would lead the path for smaller countries ! What is cost of a CL515 compared to the cost of the failure called F35, and which one would be more useful ?
WOW!Q!!! My limited knowledge of piloting cannot imagine the skill required. The total trng program speaks to that issue. I was very interested in the broad scope of experience desired in the "selection" process. As a professional trnr for 40 yrs, "my hat is doffed to all in the program"!!!!!!
@5 minutes: I always love when the comparison is made with the mission of a scooper and a tanker... These are two different assignments. The scooper is dropping a short term suppressant (water) while the tanker is delivering a long term retardant. The scoopers real competitor is the helicopter.
Recently someone developed a modest fire extinguisher ball that you could throw like a baseball to put out a small fire. It occurred to me that if it were to be scaled up incorporating existing military technology such as canister bombs, air bursts and Multiple Independently targetable re-entry vehicles (MIRVs) using Infra Red sensors and GPS tied to a system that is co-ordinated by a common network, that may even be thousands of miles away, wildfires, in theory at least, should become a thing of the past. Perhaps someone should contact the military contractors that hold the patents on those technologies to modify them just for this purpose.
Interestingly when I worked on the CL215 some country ordered one as just a military amphibious flying boat . Somebody ,probably a high ranking officer wanted to sit in a chair, ! Which was in line with the propellor which presented problems airworthiness wise so we got him to sign the acceptability for his aircraft.
Helicopter can do the same or even more drops than Canadair. Anyway it is great plane, doing good (precise and low) drops. Worked together in Turkey, firefighting in 2021 and 2022.
If the company were forward thinking, they would provide two of these planes, along with crews and support to the State of California. There are plenty of large enough surface water bodies in the areas where we have the large fires. Once the prove their abilities I would expect the orders to roll in.
I have challenging comment on Canada /Australia since I read a comment that Australia won’t but buy 215,s etc. As an Australian I got my Aeronautical Engineering knowledge in Melbourne Australia and decided to come to work for Canadair. Australia didn’t look like it was going to go into Air raft Manufacturing and design and did I sure make a good decision.look at all the Canadian aircraft flying around in the world and Australia has almost none.
By June 2023 there is heightened interest in this aircraft. It has been shifted to DeHavilland Canada and is now DHC-515. European orders already through 2027.
Well... It is by far the best-fixed wing firefighting aircraft but certainly, this video wants to promote it perhaps a little too much against the competition and I refer to rotary wings, I find it hard to believe they have been compared fairly keeping in mind that their size and capability differs a LOT based on models. Even the quantity of drops of helicopters is reduced quite a bit for the purpose of the comparison. Let's not forget that a helicopter does not need a more than 1km body of water to refill and can drop way more precisely and closer to the fire the water loads... just to mention a few facts.
Different platforms for different needs. Nothing beats the CL-415 drop volume in a day if a large water body is not too far. It can fly in much higher winds than helos, and in 1 drop can do the job of several helo drops. However helos can pick up water from small bodies of water, including swimming pools, and can fight fires next to houses and even inside some populated area. Canadairs can't. That's why some countries have both firefighting helos & Canadairs. Got a large fire near my house on the outskirt of a town in Colorado a few years ago. 100K population. Raged for 1 month in the vicinity. It was extremely painful watching helos that, over a couple of weeks, could only scoop up water a few hours a day from the massive reservoir next door. I.e. only in the morning when the wind was very light. In the end they didn't do much, except protectecting only a few houses. A Canadair in that situation would have made a world of a difference. Maybe 4X to 8X more total water volume dropped ?
Not to sure about night operations on fires. Both night vision and the human eye dont operate very well in bright light at night. Can see both pilots and night vision systems being temporarily blinded during the run up into the drop.
In France we only have 8 CL 415s in service! 4 Are pinned to the ground for lack of parts!! There are currently a lot of fires in our country and our "government" should urgently order around thirty CL 515s before our country turns into a desert!!!😡
Bigger isn’t always better. The 10 FireBosses they are using can deliver 4 times as much water as one of these CL515’s and you can buy all ten of them for less than the price of one 515.
@@FlightData101 12 seconds to get 1600 Litres of water with the CL 515 15 seconds to get 800L on the air boss. cheaper isn't always more effective or efficient. 7000 litre capacity on the 515 vs 3104 Litres on the Fireboss. The 515 carries 2 and a bit worth of fireboss in water drops in volume and the 515 can fly at night. Both have a place but I watched the Firebosses work one time and it was like they were pissing on a bonfire. Firebosses working alone can't do much other than put out spots while the heavy planes pick up the slack.
@@consecrator8688 haven’t seen or heard of them being out here this year. If fires are burning in Quebec they will stay there. Watched the little skimmers work on Mara lake but the 415’s need to be based here. It’s not like we only get a fire once in a while.
@@dougberry1011 Yeah, I haven't seen the quebec ones this year but the 415s from Alberta are currently in Castlegar. Unfortunately, the smoke is so bad I don't think they can take off!
This is not a video about the Mars bomber. Although the Mars bomber is a beautiful machine with an incredibly large capacity, it is an old airplane. It is good for dropping large amounts of water over a large, smooth area. This water bomber can get into smaller areas in hilly country. And as always, it is a tool in the toolbox.
From Wikipedia: "The company was established in 1970 by founder, Norwegian-born Canadian aviation pioneer Nils Christensen, doing overhaul, maintenance and conversions to all types of aircraft but specializing in flying boats." "Viking" seems like a natural choice for a Scandinavian working with seaplanes.
It said in the video that they were planning to implement NVD's (Night Vision Device) to the pilots helmet so they could drop at night. Personally I agree with Stan Cunningham and think it would be a little to dangerous to be doing that at night. Not to say that they couldn't use them at all at night, but for different reasons like search and rescue.
@@krusty269 the SAR version of the 415 had set up for NV but for a mission operator stationed in the cabin. There was a early FLIR mod but was limited, more like a hot spot locator (basic direction). I wouldn’t go staring at the display while descending as it might be the last thing you do. Was with the program for nearly 25 years
@@stancunningham3711 Flying low at night amid smoke in areas that might suffer from electricity blackouts is indeed a bad idea. However the video did mention the plane would operate "as a tanker" which I took to mean they'd operate from a significantly higher altitude similar to the cargo planes. Less precision and effectiveness, but in many dire cases that is still much better than completely stopping drops for 8-12 hrs.
It is not about $/gallon; areal firefighting is *exhausting* and the CL415 can operate for longer because it would not tire its two people crew as fast as the single seat Fire Boss would. The only real comparison is $ of fire fighting / $ of damage saved; and there is room for all different size equipment, depending on the circumstances.
What pisses me off is that an American company does not make one better than the Canadian, Japanese , and russian versions of the concept . We were set to produce the russian version in Colorado . I do not know what happened to the deal , but evidently the plan went down the toilet as it should have , but why can we not build our own . Have we fallen so far .
Starlink can help you tey do provide internet connexion storm and Hurricaine for Cargo IT avalaible 2 month ago FSD heloing the crews Voila they planned for new passengers planes new standard
A company that sells aircraft to governments can't say fires are worse because of government mismanagement. Global warming is real, but the government will always point to other causes that are not government mismanagement.
second yeet also what's next, a cl-999915 that's 1000 feet long and has 40 engines, as well as 2 sets of wings, a rocket engine so it can go to mars, and 5 tails
Then what do you think is causing all these fires? if it’s not global warming then It could only be poor government management and we know that’s not the case.
ITS NOT CALLED A “CANADAIR”!!! It’s a CL-215, 215T or 415. Canadair is the company that made it, but the built many other types. So calling it a canadair makes no sense