Giant water bomber may not be used

How despicable is it that one of the leading reasons this tremendous resource couldn't be used, was because it was stuck up in US Customs. What is wrong with our federal government that they couldn't even be bothered to make an exception at the border for such a tremendous emergency. Someone should lose their cushy government job over this.

The Mars was delayed because it belongs to a private operator and did not have a valid US airworthiness certificate which is a safety issue when dealing with a plane that's more than 50 years old. In contrast the CL-415's (SuperScooper) that were leased from the Province of Quebec were flown directly from their home bases to SoCal without even having to deal with Customs since all their FAA paperwork -and that of their crews- is kept up-to-date. We wouldn't even have to bother with this if the authorities acquired real fire bombers such as Canadair SuperScoopers instead of hiring inefficient old military conversion aircraft that cost a fortune to operate with little benefit against fires. Hercs are great planes but they were never designed for this job.

BTW I am currently in Canada on behalf of my employer looking at a long-term deal with Bombardier (Canadair div.) pertaining to the wet-lease of two CL-415's for LA County. I was impressed with aircraft's performance down home, I am equally impressed with design work up here.

OK, that makes a lot more sense. I didn't realize they didn't keep a valid US cert, I just assumed it was bs paperwork in customs.

Jim wrote:

The Mars was delayed because it belongs to a private operator and did not have a valid US airworthiness certificate which is a safety issue when dealing with a plane that's more than 50 years old. In contrast the CL-415's (SuperScooper) that were leased from the Province of Quebec were flown directly from their home bases to SoCal without even having to deal with Customs since all their FAA paperwork -and that of their crews- is kept up-to-date. We wouldn't even have to bother with this if the authorities acquired real fire bombers such as Canadair SuperScoopers instead of hiring inefficient old military conversion aircraft that cost a fortune to operate with little benefit against fires. Hercs are great planes but they were never designed for this job.

http://www.rense.com/general43/still.htm

This Russian "water bomber" drops 11,000 gallons of water. It's a Ilyushin-76TD. The URL details one man's crusade to get it approved for trial in US. Apparently it performed very well in Greece in 1999 during some horrific wildfires there.

Why not give it a try? Two major fires inside of five years in San Diego -- something is very wrong with that picture.

The San Diego fire budget is so fubar'd, they were barely able to retain a fire helicopter. It's really a sad joke.

Gordon Wagner wrote:

http://www.rense.com/general43 /still.htm
This Russian "water bomber" drops 11,000 gallons of water. It's a Ilyushin-76TD. The URL details one man's crusade to get it approved for trial in US. Apparently it performed very well in Greece in 1999 during some horrific wildfires there.
Why not give it a try? Two major fires inside of five years in San Diego -- something is very wrong with that picture.

Would it not be cheaper to fund wildfire prevention and have the tools in place to prevent the kind of human devastation we've seen? Am I being naive?