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After the close of World War II, advances
made in military aircraft technology during the war were quickly pressed into
peacetime service to fight one of the oldest and most feared natural
phenomena—wildfires. Until the 1950s, once a wildfire had spread across
bone-dry forests or parched grasslands, there wasn't much that firefighters
could do except watch it burn and try to rein in its swath of destruction. That
unbalanced playing field was somewhat leveled with the introduction of the air
tanker.
Ingenious (but ultimately impractical)
early experiments in California focused on dumping water or fire-retardants
onto forest fires from wooden beer kegs mounted in single engine airplanes, or
even using a common garden hose to spray water from above into the inferno. In
the early 1950s, public safety officials in California recognized the potential
for aerial firefighting and teamed up with the U.S. Forest Service to develop a
practical air tanker to combat forest fires.
By the
mid-1950s, surplus World War II Stearman PT-17 and N3N military biplanes had
been modified for use as air tankers and the development effort was shifted to
larger military aircraft that could carry greater loads of fire retardant
chemicals or water. The decision to retrofit existing military aircraft was a
wise one based on several factors: surplus aircraft were readily available and
relatively inexpensive; originally constructed to transport bombs or cargo over
long distances, they were ideally suited to haul the heavy loads of fire
retardant chemicals or water required for efficient aerial firefighting;
designed for maneuverability and speed, they could withstand extreme stresses
on their airframes; and they were sturdily built, which allowed for the
installation of heavy water or retardant storage tanks.
Soon, a wide
variety of World War II-era aircraft could be spotted in aerial firefighting
efforts over the forests of the western United States—Boeing B-17 Flying
Fortresses, Grumman PBY
Supercats and Privateers, F7F Tigercats, and Fairchild C-119 Boxcars were some
of the early recruits in the aerial firefighting ranks. Later in the century,
more modern military aircraft, such as Lockheed P-3 Orions and
C-130 Hercules, formed the backbone of the air tanker fleet.
Please read the rest of this article by Roger
Guillemette...
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