Giant Flying Boats would have helped stop fires, could in the future

California’s politicians — Gov. Arnold and the Democratic Legislature — missed a big opportunity. They should have bought giant Flying Boats from a Canadian company. A reader sends me this email:

Dear Mr. Seiler,

I just read your article on the California fires at LewRockwell.com.

On a related note, I’m a bit puzzled at the lack of really competent air bombardment of these fires. The only big tanker on the news is the DC-10 Supertanker. This ship dumps a whole load of fire retardant, but then has to land and get recharged. This takes hours. It is not capable of hitting fires repeatedly in an hour, nor is it capable of dealing with multiple fires like you have out there now. Plus, it needs a guide plane.

There is a Canadian company up on Sproat Lake in British Columbia, near Vancouver Island, that has for years flown fire-fighting missions all around the world. They use the two remaining four-engined Martin Mars Flying Boats, a giant military aircraft used in the South Pacific towards the end of WWII. These monsters can dump 7200 gallons of water/fire retardant (27 tons) each on one pass-over, then hit the sea or lake, reload at 60-70 knots while skimming the water, take off and be back on the fire in 12 minutes. Working in tandem, it is obvious why the Canadians have had no major forest fires.

This company is Coulson Flying Tankers. Quoting from their website, http://www.martinmars.com/

“Flying Tankers operate on the philosophy of “gallons per hour”. Simply stated, this means a direct assault on the fire by dropping the largest possible amount of water or gel in the shortest possible time. This philosophy, combined with the Mars excellent initial attack and outstanding ability for sustained operations are the keys to our success – they are scoopers and, working in tandem, they are able to deliver 14,000 US gallons (54,500 litres) of suppressant for the initial attack and continue delivering as much as 7,200 US gallons (27,276 litres) every seven minutes thereafter in sustained operations if needed.

Today, the company is owned by Coulson Aircrane Ltd who have determined that efficiencies gained over the years have “freed up” flying time and our company is now able to offer Mars services which were largely restricted to the owners in previous years. In short, the Mars are spreading their 200 foot (61 meter) wingspan to provide protection on a callout service or contract basis to any company or agency requiring the unique initial attack and sustained action qualities of the Mars. NO OTHER AIRCRAFT CAN DELIVER A MASSIVE 60,000 POUND (27,216 KILOGRAM) PAYLOAD AS QUICKLY AS THE MARS AND CONTINUE TO DELIVER IT EVERY FEW MINUTES FOR SEVERAL HOURS OR UNTIL THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED.”

Since you are right there in the thick of it, and since there are still many fires burning, maybe you folks can get your State officials to give Coulson Flying Tankers a ring….

Yours sincerely,

C. R. Rowe

Peterborough NH

Thanks for the great idea. Now, if only Arnold would stay put instead of traipsing around the advancing himself as the President of the Universe, and get down to the hard work of actually governing the state, maybe solutions like this will be adopted.

My suggestion: The company should rename its plane Neptune’s Fire Drencher.

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