According to an an article in FireAviation today, T944 will no longer be available for the 2021 Fire Season. The parent company, Global Supertanker has cease operations and they are attempting to sell the aircraft
Here is a link to the article
The 747 Supertanker is ceasing operations - Fire Aviation
Sounds like they knew they weren’t gonna get their temp approval renewed.
They were told they would not get another interim approval for this year in 2020. There are many issues with the system. Obviously they have an issue they have been unable to, or refused to fix for years. In my opinion the only reason they got as many interim approvals as they did, was because the CEO was in front of every camera and politician he could find saying how his aircraft would save the world. Had it not been for COVID, they would have not received an interim approval last year.
The issues with the aircraft are not well publicized, but are well known to the aviation community.
The ground compressor, necessitates flying all the way back to one single base for reload. Potentially flying over multiple bases capable of handling the aircraft. Increasing cost and decreasing efficiency.
The aircraft has continually come back to base with large quantities of retardant still in the tank. Anywhere from 3000-9000 gallons.
The aircraft releasing the load at below approved heights was the cause of a line of duty death in 2018 on the Mendocino complex.
The pattern created by the tanker was not consistent and would create weak spots in the line.
In California that was a 400 mile round trip for one drop on fires it flew on the sierra national forest. On the mission fire a few years back they flew two drops and both were too high, AA had maffs reestablish the line after the flank ran a couple hundred acres.
Sure wish the politics with 944 could have been avoided and not forced Global Star to shutter her like Evergreen had to…
Sure could use that VLAT now.
Politics kept it flying. Safety shut it down.
I thought it was the lack of coverage on the tail of level 3 & 6. What safety?
Go back and read Chaparral’s post and see how that is safe.
The irregular pattern on Levels 3 & 6 and the trail-off were two separate and distinct issues. The Level 3 & 6 coverage issues were quite apparent throughout the entire drop run while the trail-off occurs only at the end of the load and happened on every run not just on coverage levels 3 & 6
Copy that. Thx for the clarification.