Fire Season

[Warbirds45]

As Big Jim would say........You magnificent Pagan God..........I like I was a little rusty on panic!

Taken in 1980 at Hemet Ryan,the vibration and roar of the 4360's was deafening!

I have watched these guys fly out of Hemet for many years! My hat goes off to some great aviators.

Hopefully we will not see these aircraft in the skies.

[Leo]

Re: Fire Season

Not the big roundies we won't.
They've been gearing up at Stead and so far all I have seen are 130's, SEATS and a couple Skycranes. The Guard has been flying a Chinook with a bucket around a lot also.
Not sure what else is available besides the Stoofs (anyone operating P-3's, and are the Neptunes still in service?).

[Plane Nuts]

Re: Fire Season

In the north bay, Ca all we see is turbine Stoofs and Bronco spotters. Haven't seen or heard a radial Stoof in years. In the late 80's passing through Ukiah stopped for a CDF airshow of radial Stoofs and C-119-s.

[Kegger]

Re: Fire Season

Neptunes were active at McClellan last year during the King Fire. Loved the sound of those radials flying over my house.

There used to be a radial Stoof sitting on the south edge of the Cal Fire ramp at McClellan, but that may be the airframe that is now at the Aerospace Museum of California at McClellan.

[RAD2LTR]

Re: Fire Season

Neptune Aviation still has their P2 Neptunes, I think they finished a new one late last year. Erickson still has their DC7s. Those got a repaint earlier this year. The radials are getting to be fewer and fewer, but they are still out there.

June 30th of last year there was a big fire in Pope Valley, about a 45 min drive from me. I headed up there in hopes of catching some tankers out of either Santa Rosa, Chico, or Sacramento making their drops with the camera. The turbo S2s were doing their thing, which was cool but then they had to head back to Santa Rosa to reload. The sun had gone down and from the east I hear the rumble of a pair of radial engines. Out of the smoke came one of Neptune's P2s. He was A little far away from me to get a really good shot with only a 300mm lens, but it was a really cool sound and sight. It made my day. He made a few passes and headed back the direction he came from. The following weekend on the other side of Lake Berryessa there was another big fire (so two big ones burning at the same time in the same area) near Winters. I headed up there and saw one of Erickson's DC7s make several drops, but I couldn't get close enough for a shot. For both of these fires they had DC7s coming down from Madras Oregon. All the other tankers in the north state were already on both fires. I heard one of the planes from Madras lost an engine down here, dumped its load and flew back home on 3 engines so the one could be replaced overnight.

I think this year is going to be a very bad fire season and there will be a huge scramble to find tankers to fill the need. The former Aero Union P3s are still sitting over at McClellan. A group tried to crowdfund the purchase of one so they could get the forest service contract and then buy the rest but it was a total failure. They failed to raise less than 1% of the needed funds to make it happen. I have a feeling those planes will be sorely missed this year. Yes, they have lots of hours on them, but its my understanding that they were still very airworthy.










Will