Tag Archives: Airtanker

Stored Airtankers Awaiting Their Turn

Quite a while back, I made a trip to Abbotsford. In more recent visits I have created posts of their Q400 based airtankers out on some test flights. However, before they became tankers, these were all airliners that had been retired from passenger service. Conair buys up these older airframes when the price is right, and they come to Abbotsford to await their time in the conversion program.

A few of them were sitting on the ramp when I made my visit. Some were being worked on while others were just waiting for some attention. Various bits were missing – often the expensive bits like engines. It is possible that some of the airframes might only be acquired to provide a source of spare parts and they will never fly again. I have no idea whether that is the case for any of these. Hopefully they will have since made it back into the air and are now being used to fight wildfires somewhere.

Air Tractor Exercises

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When I posted the Conair Q400 ops a while back, I focused on the larger tankers. However, there is a role for the small tankers too and the Air Tractor is one such plane. These can be used as spotters for the larger tankers, but they can also drop loads onto a fire if needed as well. A couple of them planes were up doing pattern work, presumably getting some currency in for the crews. Since they are a smaller plane, they were happy using the cross runway which meant they came directly over where I was. Cool little things to watch.

Redmond Airtanker Base

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My trip to Madras involved flying in to Redmond airport, about half an hour south of Madras. Hayman and I came in on the same flight and shared a ride to Madras. As we drove out of the airport, something interesting caught my eye on the other side of the field so we did a little exporting before heading off. Redmond has a base for Airtanker operations in support of firefighting. The aircraft that I had first seen was a DC-7 that had been converted for tanker operations and was painted up in Erickson colors. It looked immaculate and the activity suggested it might be preparing to depart. With fires in the surrounding hills, there was plenty of work.

While we waited for it to start up, a BAe146 tanker conversion landed and taxied in to the base. It was the first time I had seen one in person. Sadly the fencing around the base was rather touch to shoot through. Hayman made good use of the gap under the gates but my camera shape did not allow that. I had to make do with shooting through the fence where possible.

Shortly after the 146 came in, the DC-7 fired up and taxied out. With it gone, we figured it was time for us to continue on our way too.