Think about dropping water and retardant with the accuracy of an AC-130 gunship. They have the infrared sensors and all-weather navigation capabilities that would allow attacks all night long. They wouldn’t have to guess where the hot spots were. There is a lot of military technology that should be used for these types of situations.
The F-105 proved it’s worth after it had been canceled. Thuds were very tough, and very reliable, but no one knew that until they were used in real conditions in SEA. The same for the A-10 – the type was scrubbed just before they proved how useful they were against armor. I will stop there before I start ranting about what a piece of garbage the F-35 would seem to be with its Swiss Army knife approach.
]]>I suspect on Sat, a 747 would have become scrap. No way it could have handled that kind of chaotic air, I don’t care what mod’s they’ve done to it.
Maybe we should refit a few old ‘Jolly Greens’ (formally: Sikorsky HH-3, HH-53 and CH-53). I think we still have a few in mothballs. The Aussie desert is good for keeping things, like in Arizona. π I remember a Vietnam vet on my team saying that there was nothing more beautiful than a JGG when trying to evac a hot zone. π We had a few trips on them, and I agree with him. Seeing a Jolly coming in with it’s the three 7.62 miniguns spitting 4,000 rounds a minute at a hot pickup certainly made the baddies go elsewhere, very fast. LOL A few times a HH-53 or a flight of Sandys (A-1’s), F-105 or F-4’s saved our asses. Usually, F-105’s or F-4’s would sanitize our LZ, then we’d come in a couple Joly’s with a flight of Sandy’s flying close air support. We rarely had any problems. π
They can take a heck of a beating. Better than those twice damned UH-60 Black-Hawk’s! Thank the stars they weren’t around wen I was serving. I’d rather have walked. Bloody deathtraps.
Yeah… I have a big ol soft spot for the old C-130 and HH-3/HH-53. π The USA used to make good stuff, once.
]]>The roll-on kits for the C-130 would be the cheapest alternative because you already own own the aircraft, and can use them in their normal transport role when they aren’t needed for fires.
A secondary concern is that you can successfully bail out of a C-130, something that hasn’t been recorded with the military versions of the Boeing 7XX series.
]]>The new jumbo firefighter might have been useful π
Evergreen Aviation Supertanker Gallery
Wouldn’t do us any good to have one here. The cost of having it sitting in a hanger for 8 months or so of the year would be horrific. But, being a Jumbo, could be used to fight fires over the whole globe all year round.
They admitted here on a talk show Thursday that People, Gov & Business need to start seriously listening to the Climatologists and Weather experts as they have been proved right many times over the past few years. This disaster last Sat was predicted, not just a few weeks earlier but two years ago. A few weeks ago is when several weather & fire experts started the dire warnings which nobody listened too. It was too late to do much to prevent the hell fires, but lives could have been saved.
]]>The GOP wants the services, they just don’t want to pay for them, which means there is no money available for the hard times.
That big DC-10 water tanker might have made a dent, but that is one expensive aircraft to operate. The roll-on systems for C-130s might be a better investment overall. They are effective and the airframes tend to be a lot newer than the purpose built aircraft.
Face it, we need a lot more data to figure out what to plan for in the future.
]]>NZ sends big bucket to fight Victoria fires
Even if we’d had a hundred of them Sat… I doubt it would have made a lot of difference. The two main firestorms that did most of the damage were unstoppable.
A firefighting crew of 50 has also arrived from NZ, and 60 wildland fire experts are due to arrive from the USA in the morning (though it appears we are paying for their services, and I suppose we are paying for NZ and the others too). Along with crews from all around Australia and overseas, our Victorian crews, which have been doing 18 hour shifts, should be able to begin taking a well-earned rest. Forensics and other specialists teams are also arriving from around the World to help. We appreciate all the help we are getting and give thanks. π
And no… nothing about this *event* is normal. Given the weather the past decade, I don’t even know what *normal* is any more.
]]>It would be nice if there were some of the tropical weather satellites in the area to provide some data on what was going on in these fires. The fires would destroy most monitoring equipment in the area, so remote sensing is the only way to figure out what is going on. Even doppler radar feeds would help if they can sense the smoke.
These things didn’t act like anything I’ve seen, or heard about the fires in SoCal. The Cedar fire was supposed to be a “perfect storm” fire, but it paled in comparison to the Victoria fires. Flames shooting up 100 meters is some really scary stuff. The old eucalyptus have the height of Sequoias, so that may explain some of it.
]]>The fire spread numbers you’ve been talking about, Bryan, have been almost incomprehensible. Because most of the wind flow associated with a typical convection-driven fire is inflow, the idea of such powerfully driven outflow winds at the head of the fire is almost too much to imagine…
]]>They were talking to a local fire chief in San Diego, California about the deadly Cedar fire of a few years ago and he said they now know that after the Santa Ana winds came up that fire was consuming 10 acres [4 hectares] every second.
There are plenty of pictures and video from that fire that showed how fast it was moving. Just based on the pictures posted for your fires, I would guess that things were 5 or 10 times worse for flame heights and speed than the Cedar fire.
]]>Many people have stated they had zero warning before the fire arrived at their homes. It just happened too fast to do anything.
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