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747 Used to fight fires
Earlier this week, the 747 SuperTanker dropped fire retardant on the deadly flames north of San Francisco. The craft can hold up to about 20,000 gallons of water or retardant. The large, modified Boeing plane operated by Global SuperTanker Services made six flights on Monday in an attempt to quell the raging inferno. As of Wednesday, the massive fires had burned 160,000 acres. (www.yahoo.com) More...
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This not the Evergreen B747-100. It is a later model B747-400. I believe Global Super Tanker Services acquired the firefighting tank and drop system from Evergreen and then installed it in a 744.
McClellan Air Base (ex-AF) is jumping with this 747, DC10, Bac146, C130 tankers... had an old DC7 for awhile, too... been fun to watch but sad about the fires... Oak, Madrone, Digger Pine, Manzanita forests going up like bombs... has been just a matter of time before fires like this hit...
Evergreen couldn't keep it in the air, hopefully these guys will
see wiki link below. it is the old Evergreen system (I believe they had the patent on it) re-installed into a 400 airframe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/747_Supertanker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/747_Supertanker
good old Jumbo jets there are something aren't they was this the evergreen b742 979
Seems a great idea with the high retardant capacity, but why is this posted 7 months after? There have been many more fires more recently, so are the 747s still being utilized? I hope so since another serious fire season is forecast!
