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Post by whollygoats on Jan 19, 2020 5:24:11 GMT
The new Viking CL-515. Actually, a fleet of them. At least four for each state on the continent. Same for the Kiwis. The Indonesians are already in. The predecessor aircraft, the Canadair CL-215 and Bombadier CL-415, have been adopted by several European nations and Canada for aerial firefighting. Viking holds the certificates on the Canadair water bomber, as well as the entire de Havilland Canada line of aircraft: Chipmunk, Beaver, Otter, Twin Otter, Caribou, Buffalo and Dash-7, and has resurrected production of the Twin Otter. Now they are intent upon continuing the Canadair water-bomber lineage. There are online videos of the Croatian, the Greek, and the Spanish teams in various actions against wildfires. Watching them is frankly amazing. I highly recommend for the aerially inclined. The US only has two of these craft (warranted, there are a LOT of other, revised, renovated and retrofit craft used in water-bombing in the US) in the entire country and I think we need to make more of an investment in this kind of craft and generate agreements to shift these kinds of resources across boundaries between multiple political entities to meet and address crisis wildfire situations.
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Post by tangent on Jan 19, 2020 10:09:20 GMT
... and generate agreements to shift these kinds of resources across boundaries between multiple political entities to meet and address crisis wildfire situations. Excellent idea.
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Post by JoeP on Jan 19, 2020 11:04:24 GMT
Seeing only the thread title, my first guess was "rain" and my second guess was "a responsible government". But of course, planes are also your thing!
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Post by ceptimus on Jan 19, 2020 20:38:50 GMT
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Post by whollygoats on Jan 20, 2020 6:17:47 GMT
Correction: Evidently there are four Canadair craft in the US presently, and rather than Indonesia having signed on, it is Malaysia.
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Post by kingedmund on Jan 20, 2020 14:58:22 GMT
At first it looked a little clunky with an old retro design. Then I saw what it was for and it made sense.
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