This past Monday I spent a few hours watching some firefighting aircraft coming and going from Rogers Field in Chester California as they worked to fight the Biscar Fire in Lassen County, which started the day before and, as of this writing on July 22, has reached 70,000 acres and has burned into northern Nevada.
Among the planes I watched take off and land a few times was Coulson’s C-130, Tanker 140, one of 10 of these Large Air Tankers (LATS). These workhorses can carry 4000 gallons of retardant and, due to their powerful Allison turboprops and rugged builds they can do it from fairly short and fairly rough runways. These craft employ Coulson’s proprietary Retardant Aerial Delivery System (RADS), in this case the “XXL” version which they also employ in their Boeing 737 Fireliner™.
There were also 4 Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATS) working that day. These powerful little tankers are based on the Air Tractor AT-802, which was originally built as a crop duster. They are designated AT-802F or “Fireboss” and can hold 800 gallons of water or retardant and ferry it where it needs to be at around 200mph courtesy of a powerful Pratt and Whitney turbo prop making 1600 horsepower. They can be fitted with “scooper” pontoons that allow them to fill with water in just 15 seconds by skimming a suitable body. On this day they were all set up with conventional gear and were loading with retardant at the airport – still a fairly quick operation. I didn’t time them but I’m guessing from landing to taking off again was less than 30 minutes each time.
I shot a few video clips while I was at it. ..