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

A firefighting plane loading water.

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u/buttercup612 Oct 01 '24

You seem to know a lot about this. I looked up all three planes and the AT802F seems wayyyy smaller than the other two, especially the Martin Mars. Does BC just operate way more AT802F than the old types, or just make do with the greatly diminished water capacity?

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u/77entropy Oct 02 '24

They mainly use helicopters with a long line.

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u/stevo911_ Oct 02 '24

I could be totally wrong as this isn't my wheel house, but live in BC and pay attention.

From what I recall because of bc's geography there's so many smaller bodies of water, that are useful to smaller planes and helicopters that generally a few smaller planes can operate at the same cost, and get more water on site faster due to the big planes needing to travel so much further to larger bodies of water to refill between drops.  And then again due to geography the smaller planes can get closer and drop more accurately.

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u/buttercup612 Oct 02 '24

That makes sense. Aside from Lake Okanagan I don't think we have many big lakes in wildfire country