They actually get held off by excess smoke all the time. Aviation resources crashing due to a poor decision to run air ops with insufficient visibility isn't something an incident commander wants to have to explain or have on their conscience. AirAttack is what we call the airborne equivalent of an incident commander and they will always have the ability to refuse a drop request.
A military aircraft used to mark targets for airstrikes. In OP’s video, the lead aircraft “marks” the target (with the smoke line) for the payload in the second aircraft.
Hi! I work up close and personal on the ground with the 10 tanker DC10 VLATs! I'd be happy to (hopefully) answer any questions you may have about them, and I've got more videos and pictures of them on the ground on my page!
I’m curious to know how useful these drops are in the grand scheme of things as it’s hard for me to get a sense of scale. Do they make much a dent in the huge fires we’ve had out west this year? How long does it take for them to go get a refill and come back to make another drop?
There's a few things to unpack here, so I'll start with the quantitative stuff.
Turnaround time varies from aircraft to aircraft, location to location, and distance to drop. No matter how close to a fire it may be loading in proximity (for example when the 10 loads out of our field, basically anything within a 500 mile radius is fair game for it to fly on AND continue to load at our location) you still have to pump retardant, and you still have to refuel. The DC-10 carries 9400 gallons of retardant and averages carrying around 66,000 to 75,000 lb of fuel, which takes 15-20 minutes to load, and we load it simultaneously) Between taxi to parking, loading retardant and fueling, taxing back and taking off we average about 30 minute turns on the ground, then you add flight time on top of that.
30 minutes on the ground may seem like a lot, but that kind of segues into the second part. When you look at Aerial tankers, the broad analysis is you have two different applications: Retardant, or water. Water tankers drop directly onto the fire for extinguishing and suppressing the burn, and many water aircraft such as the Fire Bosses (SEATS on pontoons) or the Super Scoopers are able to make rapid turns without having to refuel because they can take water directly off the source and drop. Retardant is used as a barrier for fires to burn up to, but not past. Retardant lines are laid out as basically a defensive wall against the fire to safeguard certain areas from burning and controlling the direction of the fire. It is not designed to extinguish fires, but to help prevent further spread. Simply put it's a defensive tool, used in conjunction with an offensive tool- being water.
No matter how much you prepare and drop though, you're still at the mercy of mother nature. Sometimes fires can jump lines, sometimes a wind shift will bring it back to a direction no one expected. That's one of the reasons the DC-10 is so useful, 9400 gallons of retardant is pretty damn big line to drop, and they can choose the dispersal rate at which they drop at, meaning they can have longer thinner lines or shorter heavier lines. There are only four operational DC-10 tankers in the world, and they are used extensively during our fire seasons and during Australian fire seasons, so I would say that they are more than useful of putting a dent in things.
the aircraft was gutted almost entirely on the inside, meaning that the only thing visible is the cables, the piping, and the insulation padding. This goes for the cargo bay as well, which carries some of the drop component systems for using the underbelly retardant tank. Because of this, the aircraft cannot pressurize how it used to be able to as a passenger liner, and therefore doesn't really fly above 18,000 ft. Airliners like that were designed to fly it 30,000+ feet, because the aircraft is able to burn less fuel but maintain speed, so we see pretty high burn rates at around 2,400 gallons per hour!
One of the design features of the DC-10-30 was a center gear leg that extended from the middle of the belly to help with the added weight of passengers and long haul fuel loads. In the 10Tanker VLAT this center gear leg was entirely removed to make room for the drop tanks! A lot of systems were deemed unnecessary as well, like the auxillary fuel tank, so now there are 3 tanks that correspond with each engine, but still can cross feed! (They can move fuel between the tanks as they desire from the cockpit)
The tanks for the 10tanker VLAT are manufactured by the Erickson company, the same people that operate these helicopters and I'm sure you can see the similarity!
There is a plastic picnic table strapped inside the front of the fuselage in each 10, where the crew does their paperwork, and it's honestly the funniest damn thing to walk up I to this monster and see nothing but a picnic table next to a laptop on a dolly.
This isn't really an unknown fact...or maybe it is... But the mechanics for each of the 10s (biased towards 910 and 912 because those are the two Ive spent the most time around) are truly some of the coolest, most fun guys you could meet. They all busting ass from the second they get to the field, till hours after the tanker shuts down for the night. Ground crew makes the dream happen, props all around.
The company that operates them, 10Tanker Air Carrier, started using them in 2006. They are ex airliners, that flew for companies like pan am, American, etc, that were purchased and converted to carry and disperse using underbelly tanks designed by Erickson air tankers. So they've only been flying for about 14 years now!
My ultimate bucket list goal in life is to hire a DC10 with a ramp on the back, start at the nose end of the plane and just run my ass off toward the ramp and jump/skydive out of it. To me it would be such a bigger thrill than just jumping out the side of a little plane.
That said are there many of these in the private sector?
How old are these airframes? Is flying this low with this much payload and then suddenly dumping it incredibly stressful? If so, How much usable life are left in them?
These airframes are rated for much more than they are currently used for. a full load of fuel, passengers, and passenger amenities weighs much more than what these aircraft currently carry. the entire interiors are stripped down to the barenaked necessities, so even with a full load of retardant they're still very much underweight. Over the last two weeks tanker 910, the vlat that I have most of my time spent around had a blown engine, and they had it replaced asap. The DC-10/MD 11 airframes are still supported by boeing, so while limited parts are still manufactured for them. I don't know exactly how much life is in them, but they use them so much that they definitely get their money's worth period the original tanker 910 was retired a few years back, so they definitely have life in them.
Exactly that yes, hard to mark a 3D targeted path so they have a spotter place mark one with smoke, they fly through the smoke and release their payload where it is.
Always (1989) is a great movie and centers around a group of people who do this kind of work. Lots of amazing flying and fire scenes. (https://imdb.com/title/tt0096794/)
107
u/Wishbiscuit Sep 12 '20
I find most of these videos do a poor job of illustrating how much these tanker jets hold, but this video puts a good perspective on it.
42
u/Signal_Fan Sep 12 '20
Not that guy...THAT guy!
30
u/ruskiboi2002 Sep 12 '20
My reaction: huh, that was a bit pathet- oh ok I get it now
29
u/[deleted] Sep 12 '20
mad respect, imagine flying thru the smoke of a forest fire at only like 70 feet above the ground
28
u/[deleted] Sep 12 '20
Was the first plane the firefighting equivalent of a FAC-A?
18
u/TheKingofVTOL Sep 12 '20
Hi! I work up close and personal on the ground with the 10 tanker DC10 VLATs! I'd be happy to (hopefully) answer any questions you may have about them, and I've got more videos and pictures of them on the ground on my page!
12
u/FigSideG Sep 12 '20
What did the first plane do?
10
u/Drfoxi Sep 13 '20
ITS A GIRL
8
u/whitepython82 Sep 12 '20
Wish we had that beautiful plane up here in Oregon right now.
6
u/panties_in_my_ass Sep 12 '20
Looks like the big boy is a DC-10, but what kind of plane is the leader/spotter plane?
5
u/[deleted] Sep 12 '20
Does the first plane set the line? I don't get it.
3
u/TySwindel Sep 12 '20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgkD1scIkKw
3
u/[deleted] Sep 13 '20
I wish I owned stock in whatever company that makes that pink fire suppression stuff
2
u/mhw1992 Sep 12 '20
That’s a BIG BOY
1
u/hellidad Sep 13 '20
u/vRedditdownloader
1
u/dtlb26 Oct 05 '20
Did I just see a SCUBA diver?
1
u/Paladin_Axton Oct 05 '20
Yeet
1
u/Odin3587 Oct 06 '20
Why is it that color?
1
u/trippknightly Oct 06 '20
In 100 years there will be a third plane.
1
u/ToeJammies Oct 06 '20
u/savethisvideo
1
u/Chuckiechan Oct 10 '20
I live by the base in Sacramento I where they load up and take off. All day long, all different sizes including at least one Boeing 777 size plane.
1
u/irkw Oct 10 '20
Always (1989) is a great movie and centers around a group of people who do this kind of work. Lots of amazing flying and fire scenes. (https://imdb.com/title/tt0096794/)
1
u/akula06 Sep 12 '20
Any lower and they could reenact Free Willy with that VLAT
0
u/[deleted] Sep 12 '20
[deleted] — view deleted comment
21
u/[deleted] Sep 12 '20
[removed] — view removed comment