[ QUOTE ]
Wow, 44 FO slots nationwide?? I guess you'd better have a network like microsoft to land that kind of fish. Are the C-130's not flying because of that incident in CA last year with the wings? There was a guy on the radio the other day, cracked me up. He was talking about using predators and global hawks to drop retardant on fires. "...and we got all them GPS cluster bombs we drop on the ay-rabs, why cain't we drop cluster bombs fulla water on them fars?". Not exaggerating.
[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, the A-model C-130s that were USAF surplus (1956-57 models) are grounded for firefighting following N130HPs loss of wings in California. The MAFFS C-130s of the Air National Guard are unaffected, however, since these are all H-models.
Networking is paramount for this job.