P-3 air tanker crashes in Northern California

JohnA · Post by **JohnA** » 26 May 2005, 14:07

Final paragraph of the latest Geissinger piece:

The Forest Service is ruling out use of .... a Russian supertanker citing problems gaining Federal Aviation Administration permission to fly them in this country.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/trivalleyh ... ci_2756537

Literally, the bottom line from a briefing paper prepared by staffers for
Rep Rohrabacher, who spoke to the IL-76 waterbomber April 26, 2005
on the floor of the US House of Representatives (*):

Falls under public use aircraft so does not have to be certified by FAA.

Of course, the Congressman didn't specifically address FAA cerification in his
address to the House. He didn't need to.

It follows that the US Forest Service/NIFC have some 'splainin' to do.

(*) You can read this 5-minute speech from a pdf link at Wikipedia's Il-76 entry.

NB: Thanks, everybody who's still reading this thread.

Some of you recognize that the US Forest Service managed
to bring its aerial operations into contempt by right-thinking
members of the aviation community. I cite in support of this
contention:
Air Safety Week: Deplorable Safety Record
of Firefighting Aircraft Scored in Report

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... i_95281483

JohnA · Post by **JohnA** » 27 May 2005, 14:40

With the latest announcements (P2Vs restored to
service), this brings the US fleet to 60% of
original airplane count strength.

Weight restrictions were imposed post-grounding
so that number is likely to be smaller.

JohnA · Post by **JohnA** » 28 May 2005, 21:17

The number remains just over a third of the fleet the Forest Service fielded a few years ago,

Maybe I was a little high.

The Forest Circus even had me
fooled there for a moment.

http://www.insidebayarea.com/dailyrevie ... ci_2765832

JohnA · Post by **JohnA** » 23 Jun 2005, 18:20

new Il-76 article here: http://www.profindpages.com/news/2005/06/23/MN1000.htm