Officials Say Plane Still Needs To Be Tested Battling Real Fires
Copyright 2006 The Press Enterprise, Inc.
All Rights Reserved
By RICHARD BROOKS
The Press Enterprise (California)
SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. — A low-flying Boeing 747 intentionally flooded a mile-long swath of airport pavement Wednesday to showcase the jumbo jet’s potential to become the nation’s largest firefighting air tanker.
Four nozzles near the plane’s tail spewed 20,500 gallons of water — seven times the capacity of the largest conventional air tankers — creating a brief but intense mini-rainstorm.
“It wasn’t just damp. There were pools of water out there,” airport employee Randy Ament said after inspecting Taxiway B at San Bernardino International Airport.
The show was the final stop on a coast-to-coast marketing tour aimed at fire officials, politicians and reporters.
The message: Evergreen International Aviation — the plane’s owner — could position five supertankers throughout the nation, allowing at least one of the 500-mph jets to reach selected flare-ups before they become infernos like the 90,000-acre Old Fire that ravaged the San Bernardino Mountains in 2003, destroying 940 homes.
The reaction of many federal, state and local fire officials who watched Wednesday’s drop: It’s an intriguing notion, but the plane must be tested on real fires to determine its capabilities, limitations and cost-effectiveness.
Yet, the concept and the plane’s enormous payload helped prompt San Bernardino Mayor Pat Morris to endorse the project and urge company officials to make the city their primary operating base in Southern California.
“If (fire officials) had a great tanker to drop a massive load on that plume in the canyon, the Old Fire might not have been,” said Morris, recalling the blaze’s smoky birth in Old Waterman Canyon.
Company officials acknowledge that there has been skepticism among some fire officials and pilots of conventional tankers about a 747’s ability to safely and effectively maneuver in canyons. But flight tests have proven those worries unfounded, company officials say.
“We can operate in these canyons and these mountains,” Evergreen Supertanker Services President Bob McAndrew said as he scanned the nearby San Bernardino National Forest. “We could operate at night. And nothing else (in firefighting aviation) can operate at night.”
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection wants to evaluate the big jet on real fires this year, if the plane passes all of its federal safety tests and preliminary operational evaluations.
“I’d like to see them use it in every aspect of firefighting, everything from grass fires to heavy brush fires and in every kind of situation,” said Mike Padilla, aviation chief for CDF.
The agency is responsible for fighting fires in the heavily populated foothills below the San Bernardino National Forest, and serves on a contract basis as the Riverside County Fire Department.
It’s possible that both Evergreen’s 747 and its closest competitor — an Apple Valley-based 12,000-gallon DC-10 owned by Omni Airlines — could begin fighting fires this year, said Scott Fisher, president of the Interagency Airtanker Board, which evaluates new air tankers that are seeking federal contracts.
The Evergreen 747 has completed its board tests. Though the final report and evaluation are awaiting publication, Fisher said that the Evergreen flight crew proved they could handle the big plane in mountains north of Tucson, Ariz.
“They demonstrated they could fly a straight line along the ridge and that they could drop down into the canyon and climb back out,” Fisher said by phone from Boise, Idaho. “It climbs out as well, or better, than existing air tankers.
The big jet’s operating speeds and turn radius are nearly identical to existing tankers, important factors when flying in canyons, he said.
“It has a little bit wider turn than the current large air tankers, and it requires a few more seconds to get lined up” before a drop, he said.
Local fire chiefs are eager to see how the jumbo jets perform.
“The biggest problem is that the U.S. Forest Service is running out of tankers,” said Running Springs Fire Chief Bill Smith, who previously served 30years with the Forest Service and whose mountain town was threatened by the Old Fire.
The World War II and Korean War-vintage air tankers that had formed the mainstays of the tanker fleet until 2003 are near the end of their useful life spans. Some have become unsafe, according to two separate federal studies after the fatal crash of three large air tankers several years ago.
As a result of those crashes, the Forest Service temporarily grounded all 33 of the nation’s large air tankers and tightened safety requirements. This season, only 16 of those planes have passed safety reviews and are scheduled to fight fires.
“I’m not sure yet whether (the 747) has a place in our everyday fires, just because of its size and maneuverability,” said Smith. “I’m here to find out more. But the real proof is going to be . . . at real fires (where we’ll) find out what its capabilities are.”