Tanker 944 no more

Sculprit

Sculprit

Well-Known Member
Unfortunate to hear that the 747 Super Tanker is no more. The company ceased ops immediately yesterday. Hopefully someone will pick the aircraft up and it will continue to do its thing soon. @ChasenSFO has some pretty great shots of this bird.
Super Tanker Grounded
 
Hopefully 944 doesn’t end up scrapped like 947 and 979 were. I got to watch 979 get scrapped.

Most of the initial design test and eval stuff with regards to 747s as a tanker, was completed by Evergreen when they converted 947 and 979. If I remember with 979, it was a 24,000 gal tanker +/-, compared to 12,000 gal for the DC-10. The biggest problem being just more expensive to operate with regards to contract compared to the -10. I believe 944 is similar in capacity to what 947 and 979 were.
 
Tanker 979 at MZJ just before it was very suddenly and very quickly scrapped.

Photo credit: MikeD

8253DEE0-2618-45D5-993B-13A0548089B2.jpeg
 
Interesting take on the situation in this article: Wildfire Today: The 747 Supertanker shuts down.

It sounds like the Global Supertanker had been servicing contracts with a series of interim approvals around performance during certain types of drops(?) from the Interagency Air Tanker Subcommittee (IABS), and they declared "no more!"
 
One of the bigger problems was being in a CWN contract. Those are tough to do, having to have the asset available in a set amount of response time, logistics, supply and personnel; when the call comes. Especially with an asset this large and requiring so much of the former. This jet really needed to be on an EU contract to make it worthwhile to run. I would like to know if the standards it was being held to, are still age or asset appropriate; and whether there was any room to modify them for an asset of this size and type.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Random question, you wouldn’t happen to have any CalFire OV-10’s there would you?
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We have a small fleet of privately owned OV-10's being restored at Chino. At first I assumed they were going to CalFire but I was wrong.

The following story is from July 2019. I think two are completed and two others are in the restoration hangar.

Historic Vietnam Aircraft Takes Flight as part of World's Largest Private Restoration Project

After an incredibly long road, the largest OV-10 restoration project in the world is celebrating it's first big win, as the first of an entire squadron of aircraft under restoration takes flight.”— Mike Manclark, Leader, OV10 Squadron

The OV-10 Squadron Fleet

On January 4, 2018, the OV-10 Squadron loaded six decommissioned aircraft onto a convoy of trucks, The aircraft made an epic 1,300-mile road trip from the National Vietnam War Museum in Mineral Wells, TX to meet with the 7th OV-10D in the fleet at California’s Chino Airport (KCNO).
The restoration specialists in Chino are the best-of-the-best in the warbird business, and are some of the industry’s last remaining experts in hand-formed aluminum sheet metal, fabricating Plexiglas canopies, and rebuilding engines long out of service.

These are their stories:

https://www.einnews.com/pr_news/4910...ration-project

ov10-squadron-first-flight-over.jpg
 
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Minuteman said:
A couple of the OV-10s that flew with CalFire BLM are now at the Fort Worth Aviation Museum.



Edit: Not CalFire
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The one in the video was is first one restored at Chino. That picture over the water (two posts up) was taken in the Lake Mathews practice area when it was being test flown coming out of restoration.
 
There was a report done by one of the Montana universities forest department that said we are over a decade behind in controlled burns and thinning non-native (fire-resistant) vegetation. It’s going to be a long time before we get to healthy forests.
 
Then there is the state of regulation of the National Environmental Protections Act that negate logging operations due to wildlife concerns and whatnot. Some or all of natural resource regulation and how they do not mesh with each other makes the FAA look pretty organized.

Being former Firewise type who would travel to neighborhoods talking fuels reduction and showing them what aviation resources might show up IF folks and neighborhoods and government itself would not do responsible brush clearing, fuels reduction, and responsible logging.....

Plus the current $50 sheet of plywood and shortages due to COVID and prices possibly coming down this summer /winter 2021 and shortages of timber due to slowing of mills and agencies not allowing responsible timber cutting NOT clearcutting

Then there's the issues of the of the '47 not meeting the criteria of the IATB (Interagency Airtanker Board) and NIAC (National Interagency Aviation Committee) and the infamous cup test (in the desert) for various coverage levels.....

Anyway, the US is NOT anywhere near their 44 ship airtanker inventory of the 1990's and 2000 era and there are no purpose built acft other than CL 215/415 series, Beriev 200, the Japanese Shinwa(?) and the infamous SEAT program...we all know the deal.............

While the '47 may not be as agile as the DC10 in backcountry retardant delivery and because its tanking system was not in the gravity fed realm...this may have been a short sighted decision to possibly have forced the hands GTS investors to shutdown operations

But like the Evergreen of 2006 era.....some one else may raise this decision out of the ashes
 
MikeD said:
Hopefully 944 doesn’t end up scrapped like 947 and 979 were. I got to watch 979 get scrapped.

Most of the initial design test and eval stuff with regards to 747s as a tanker, was completed by Evergreen when they converted 947 and 979. If I remember with 979, it was a 24,000 gal tanker +/-, compared to 12,000 gal for the DC-10. The biggest problem being just more expensive to operate with regards to contract compared to the -10. I believe 944 is similar in capacity to what 947 and 979 were.
Click to expand...

The tank system was the single biggest problem. The arrogance of management did not help.
 
NovemberEcho said:
Random question, you wouldn’t happen to have any CalFire OV-10’s there would you?
Click to expand...

You need to come visit the great north. There’s a guy at ANE that has about a dozen of them and is restoring a few. All parked in a line on the south side of the field.
 
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