The media was just here at So Calif Logistics Airport, Victorville, filming a demonstration drop of 12,000 gallons (100,000 lb) of water from a DC-10 converted to fire bomber. It was in conjunction with the announcement of a three year contract with Cal Fire. The press release should be posted soon at http://www.fire.ca.gov/newsreleases.php

The local tv stations for CBS, NBC, ABC and Warner (ch 5 News at Ten) were here. No Fox. You may see it as a filler on their national feed.

I'm in the midst of engineering and supervising the installation of FM radios and Collision Avoidance in the King Air twin turboprop they will be using as the lead plane. The 10 Tanker is one of the more exciting projects I've had.

rdr

That is good thinking,there should be plenty of surplus planes that would otherwise be junked that could be modified and stationed all accross the country like this.
How does that thing fill up with water??

It fills at a hydrant in 8 minutes, or Fos-Chek in 15 minutes, then dumps it all in 8 seconds.

They missed some fires this spring while the plane was in C check for six weeks. They are going to start building up a second one.

I took this with my fone today.

rdr