McDonnell Douglas DC-10 (N612AX)

Beautiful aircraft.

where were you ? NW of Gateway? I live SE so usually get the other side..:)

I get the shivers every time I see one of these. We lost one a little way back during bush fire season. To come all the way to down under and then the crew lost their lives for us, I can only say --- we will remember them.

Good comment Frank. That C130 that was lost last year down south near Cooma had a 3 man crew onboard.

Fantastic picture.

While I am a huge advocate for tanker planes like this, I am concerned about structural fatigue due to both the load factor and frequency of flight cycles. When looking at wide body tanker aircraft, I am not aware of any being newly built aircraft right off the production line. They are used planes retrofitted for the new purpose. I have respect for the maintenance check cycles, but every aircraft reaches end of functional life at some point. I just wonder if the life-cycle estimates are realistic considering the stresses of fire tanker operations?

At $60,000 per hour, I guess you can have a fancy paint job.