Everyone is aware of the masterful skill that is required to make an accurate fire retardant bombing run in a FRICKEN 747 right? Hats off to these pilots!! Drinks on me mates, you saved my home county. I love you all! Take care.
747 jumbo jets cant perform like a Fighter Jet, but they can do Short Takeoffs and high angle of attack and even barrel rolls but you better be strapped in. I was in SF when the Final 747 flew in Fleetweek. 1000 feet above the Showbox, amazing.
What a shot of that plane!! Especially the last few seconds where the camera pulls out and u get the sense of scale. Such a massive plane seems so insignificant when u see the scale of the affected area
This guy was dropping on a fire 1/2 mile from my house... this dude flew 50 ft over my house and shook the whole house. Got my attention, also helped save my house... calfire really stepped up their game this year, keep it up guys
We have only heard or seen one to two planes in Sonoma County since Monday. The first one arrived the AFTERNOON after the fire, while we heard they would start at first light, but it didn;t happen. No helicopters, even though we have a dam not far with lots of water,. We live here and are not able to access our homes even for a few minutes, though they are untouched, even to get medicine or retrieve an animal. Furious.and very troubling.
Dorothy Erickson sorry to hear but hope you understand. There’s a lot that goes into every strategy and tactic which includes big time decisions. Aircraft were set and ready to go the very next morning this started, sadly mother nature had different plans and there were absolutely no winds to push the smoke anywhere so the entire county was covered and vfr for the pilots were 1 which isn’t safe. Then proceeded on to the next day where the smoke was able to lift a bit but there were people flying their own drones to capture footage of the fires and as you can see how low these planes fly, a drone hitting the prop or engines could cause a bigger disaster. Hope this clears some questions.
At 16gs an hour flight cost if they can save one home per hour it's more than worth it I'm sure you could find a homeowner willing to pay rather than risk losing everything ...19,000 gallons of water per drop vs 1000 for the helicopter buckets. Much more effective
I can't find the exact numbers but years ago these type of airliner's cost about $40,000 a day to run on missions like this, some figures were much higher. It would be nice to see if it actually did anything (film for 20 minutes after the drop). There was an LA times article that called these things "CNN Drops," which basically stated extremely large jets like this are way over priced for what they do because they can't get close enough to the fire when the spray drops. In essence, they look very good on TV and politicians look like they are doing a good job and doing everything they can.
You are right. The company that owned this plane sold this 747-400 global firefighting aircraft (minus the RDS) to National cargo after financial difficulty during covid. National re-converted it to a freighter for delivery service in operation currently. They also sold the retardent delivery system (RDS) to another U.S. company, who is currently finalizing it's conversion of a 747-200 with the RDS system that was initially in the 747-400 in the video here. After testing and government approval, we will hopefully see this enter service this year in 2023 so we will once again have a 747 global fire tanker back in the air.
Click here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KQcPk472fCU.html - Because of you, Petaluma shelters are filled with "stuff" today and are no longer accepting donations for now, except for money and gift cards. We'll keep everyone posted if and when they need more "stuff" and THANK YOU fellow Petalumans on every front of this and all other support campaigns. - We have only just begun to help our neighbors through this unspeakable tragedy.
Wild fires as we know in California are guaranteed every year, so why not build a mega-size air fleet of these planes?? There has to be infrastructure to combat these fires, like building dedicated firefighting airports in many state locations to operate 500 to 1,000 of these planes at a moments' notice. Ready for takeoff at every five minutes before fires getting out of hand.
No, the flaps and slats increase the wing surface area, providing more lift so the plane can fly at slower speeds....hence why both the slate and flaps are extended for take-off and landing.
Two buildings and many others basically made of metal siding in - N Santa Rosa - in the middle of a paved parking lot basically disappear in one case next to a untouched Gas station - Nothing to see here folks just move along - WAKE UP - (there video of it on y tube) The absence of fire trucks and equipment ( Just let it burn? ) in all the videos is Truly Disturbing!!! the buildings that basically disappear - - Cars Melted - - temps that far exceed an open air fire!! - with trees untouched a few feet away defying physics - with the media now silent about the cause - Truly Disturbing ! Homeowner should be outraged - Not one fire truck water cannon or air fire bomber was deployed Why ? - Why was this fire allowed to grow - WTF !!!
They need to develop a canister bomb filled with baking soda that would explode above the fire and snuff sections out at a time. 1000 lb bombs could be loaded on aircraft and strategically dropped even on houses without harm.
And if the bomb hits firefighters? It doesn't seem very safe. Also logistical problems, need to go back to where all these bombs are stored every time. With water you can land anywhere and have a truck run up to it and refill. Takes 30mins to refill this plan with water. On 4h you can drop a lot of water.
Privat Parts I doubt fire trucks would have access to such a large and thick forest, trees would block the way. I also doubt that a jumbo plane would land on mountainous and rugged terrain without achieving a large amount of damage henceforth rendering it unusable.
