August 12, 2007
DC-10 Supertanker To Zaca Incident........?
With Inciweb.org down again SBCFire has stepped up to provide fire updates and within their report today we read;
"Managers may use the high capacity (12,000 gallons) DC-10 aircraft this morning. Over 30 aircraft are working the fire."
Recall these lines from CalFire/CDF Director Ruben Grijalva who I quote in this post July 15 describing the capabilities of the DC-10 Supertanker;
"The DC-10 laid down a continuous line of retardant more than fifty feet wide and .7 to .8 miles long per drop. It would require ten to twelve drops from the S2T to equal the length, and extreme accuracy from the pilots to match the continuity of line. The probability of gaps in the S2T line is very high and the width of the DC-10s drop could not be duplicated..."
This tool should have been up in the air much sooner than this. Surely someone had to have been lobbying to get it in play. Estimated costs to date for the Zaca Wildland Fire exceed $64,000,000 and the containment date of September 7 is still advertised. This incident is tracking to cost in excess of $100 million.
At about $40,000 per day, plus $10,000 per operating hour with the capacity to do the work of 10 S2T's per drop you have to ask why any barriers that existed barring this important tool were not overcome weeks ago!!
* In the FWIW department. If you want to get to the bottom of who effectively killed the 747 Supertanker project and turned that amazing firefighting weapon into a plug horse cargo delivery vehicle it's Pat Norbury, U.S. Forest Service National Aviation Operations officer.
"Managers may use the high capacity (12,000 gallons) DC-10 aircraft this morning. Over 30 aircraft are working the fire."
Recall these lines from CalFire/CDF Director Ruben Grijalva who I quote in this post July 15 describing the capabilities of the DC-10 Supertanker;
"The DC-10 laid down a continuous line of retardant more than fifty feet wide and .7 to .8 miles long per drop. It would require ten to twelve drops from the S2T to equal the length, and extreme accuracy from the pilots to match the continuity of line. The probability of gaps in the S2T line is very high and the width of the DC-10s drop could not be duplicated..."
This tool should have been up in the air much sooner than this. Surely someone had to have been lobbying to get it in play. Estimated costs to date for the Zaca Wildland Fire exceed $64,000,000 and the containment date of September 7 is still advertised. This incident is tracking to cost in excess of $100 million.
At about $40,000 per day, plus $10,000 per operating hour with the capacity to do the work of 10 S2T's per drop you have to ask why any barriers that existed barring this important tool were not overcome weeks ago!!
* In the FWIW department. If you want to get to the bottom of who effectively killed the 747 Supertanker project and turned that amazing firefighting weapon into a plug horse cargo delivery vehicle it's Pat Norbury, U.S. Forest Service National Aviation Operations officer.
Labels: 2007 fire season, DC-10 Supertanker, Zaca Fire
Comments:
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It is already here.
See the today's front page of the Santa Maria Times for a picture of a retardant drop.
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See the today's front page of the Santa Maria Times for a picture of a retardant drop.
# posted by 
: August 13, 2007 8:13 AM
: August 13, 2007 8:13 AM<< Home
