The 747 can drop all or part of 20,000 gal of liquid per load, water or fire retardant, about twice as much as the nearest large tanker a converted DC-10. Some of the advantages of the 747 are the precision of its drops, how in effect it is a large crop duster, the dump comes out in drops and will not damage people or things on the ground, it can get to the fire zone at over 500 kt. and is under landing weight with a full load of retardant or water. I could go on building the clock but not this time.
Anyway it is good to see someone rescued the Super Tanker and CA. is using it.
It is palm meet forehead time. Seems the older I get the more often it happens. During the first part of recovery from surgery I'm not to lift anything over 10 lbs. It's pretty limiting as far as shop time so I dug through the scrap pile, not moving anything over 10 lbs. I swear, for something to use in making a spoon.
I carved out a bowl that I was pretty happy with and then started getting rid of wood that was not part of a spoon using a saw and chisel. Now I have a good 18" band saw setting not five feet from the right end of the main work bench. I bet you can tell where this is going, I had to do just one more split going toward the bowl before turning the blank around....Palm meet forehead.
I have some more of the blank left and a good band saw next to the bench. Back to the spoon making today.
Of course, I only flew small planes, but I can't imagine what it must be like to fly a 747 low and slow through smoke dropping fire retardant. I am curious how close to stall speed they get it or is it not necessary to fly that slow? Does all the heat generate turbulence?
ReplyDeleteNeat info, I had to read more about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/747_Supertanker
ReplyDeleteAndy,
ReplyDeleteIt has been awhile but IIRC the runs were made around 140 to 150 Kt. well above Vref for the 747. Heat will but the 747 with its weight is pretty stable. As an example a full dump, again IIRC, produced about 9000 lbs of up thrust and the aircraft didn't bobble on the run. To watch it come across full dirty at around 100-200 ft AGL and make full dump was damn impressive.
ken
Bill,
ReplyDeleteDale Smith for all his faults was a visionary and started many commercial air practices. He helped develop the commercial use of helicopters, and was a leader in air freight, and of course the Supper Tanker. They don't make 'em like Dale anymore, of course many would say "thank god" :-). But the world needs folks like him, other wise where would my bar stories come from.
ken
I just want to add, someplace around here I still have my 747 Supper Tanker T-shirt from the promotion tour, or at least I think I do. I'll have to look for it and take a photo.
ReplyDeleteken
Find that T-Shirt yet? and if you do will it still fit? :-)
ReplyDeleteBob, from the land of the CL215 (Wright rotary engines) and CL415 (Pratt & Witney Canada turbo props) Canadair water bombers (now Bombardier).
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI looked in the work shirt pile and it wasn't there, I suspect MsBubba dumped it.
ken