News of the Warm

doublejj

Well-Known Member
This sucks. I see it was a C-130. I understand that many of those refitted for fire suppression duty did not get a wing spar upgrade that left them vulnerable to fatigue failure.
No, these low flights are extremely difficult and dangerous.
To be effective, the pilots must fly the large aircraft no higher than 200 feet above the treetops. Thirty-seven firefighters have died in aerial firefighting accidents in the last decade. According to the US Forest Service, if similar casualty rates prevailed on the ground, more than 200 ground firefighters would die every year.
On the other hand, these aircraft allow fire crews to work in areas that would be too hot and dangerous to work without them. Sometimes aircraft support is the only way firefighters are able to fight particular wildfires.
No signs of equipment failure, RIP to those brave firefighters...
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
No, these low flights are extremely difficult and dangerous.
To be effective, the pilots must fly the large aircraft no higher than 200 feet above the treetops. Thirty-seven firefighters have died in aerial firefighting accidents in the last decade. According to the US Forest Service, if similar casualty rates prevailed on the ground, more than 200 ground firefighters would die every year.
On the other hand, these aircraft allow fire crews to work in areas that would be too hot and dangerous to work without them. Sometimes aircraft support is the only way firefighters are able to fight particular wildfires.
No signs of equipment failure, RIP to those brave firefighters...
Maybe not in this case but a C-130 converted to firefighting duty did crash after the wing broke at the base. It happened here in Colorado during our last huge fire season, some 8 years ago. Someone caught it on video and they showed it on the evening news.

No matter what the cause, these guys are the best of us and for a variety of reasons, old airframes being just one of many, fighting fire from the air is very dangerous indeed.
 

Grandpapy

Well-Known Member

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
There was a story on NPR earlier in the week about the effort to silence government scientists. They can't comment on blogs, write op-eds, etc, etc. Some long standing websites with daily air quality reports were taken off line. We live in crazy times.
It's our democracy- if we can keep it.
 

ttystikk

Well-Known Member
Top