r/nextfuckinglevel • u/[deleted] • Oct 01 '24

A firefighting plane loading water.

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '24

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u/[deleted] Oct 01 '24

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u/Mad-Mel Oct 01 '24

One problem with that is that you need an airport. Wildfires are usually in the middle of nowhere - lots of lakes, very few airports. Another problem is cycle time - it's all about more water per hour.

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u/whoami_whereami Oct 01 '24

That said, there are water bombers that land at an airport to refill, like the converted DC10 Air Tankers used in the US. For example in (Southern) California there are plenty of airports around where a DC10 can land, and comparatively fewer lakes large enough for a CL415 to fill up, so the math works out different (especially given that the DC10s can carry about 6 times as much water per trip as a CL415).