Plane Tales artwork

The Life Saving Bombers

Plane Tales

English - February 15, 2022 19:11 - 19 minutes - 31.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 143 ratings
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Instead of a cargo of bored business men and excited holiday makers, this aged DC-10 was carrying 12,000 gallons, thats 45,000 ltrs of bright red liquid in a huge tank attached to the centre of the fuselage. This is the story of the fire fighting water bombers.

 

A vast DC10 converted to flying tanker operations

 

A forest fire

 

Mixing fire retardant

 

A fire lookout

 

The Morton Lake hotshots

 

The dangers of a wildfire are considerable, even during an evacuation

 

The dangers of manoeuvring a big aircraft at low level are considerable

 

Other aircraft are converted into water bombers like this PBY-6A Catalina

 

Helicopters deliver water from buckets

 

One of the few purpose built water bombers, the Canadair Superscooper

 

The magnificent Mars water bomber

 

Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, John McColgan, signal mirror, DarrenRD, Tim Peterson, the USN, SSgt Ed Drew, Pierre Bona and Alex Juorio.

Instead of a cargo of bored business men and excited holiday makers, this aged DC-10 was carrying 12,000 gallons, thats 45,000 ltrs of bright red liquid in a huge tank attached to the centre of the fuselage. This is the story of the fire fighting water bombers.


 


A vast DC10 converted to flying tanker operations


 


A forest fire


 


Mixing fire retardant


 


A fire lookout


 


The Morton Lake hotshots


 


The dangers of a wildfire are considerable, even during an evacuation


 


The dangers of manoeuvring a big aircraft at low level are considerable


 


Other aircraft are converted into water bombers like this PBY-6A Catalina


 


Helicopters deliver water from buckets


 


One of the few purpose built water bombers, the Canadair Superscooper


 


The magnificent Mars water bomber


 


Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, John McColgan, signal mirror, DarrenRD, Tim Peterson, the USN, SSgt Ed Drew, Pierre Bona and Alex Juorio.