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C-130 News: USFS HC-130H air tanker to be available for duty this week


casey
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2015-07-09_Tanker_118.thumb.png.52a91c16

The U.S. Forest Service is making one of their HC-130H air tankers, Tanker 118, available for wildfire suppression missions this week. The aircraft is one of seven that are being transferred from the Coast Guard to the USFS, but the titles for all of them still remain with the Coast Guard.

The work on Tanker 118 to completely convert it into an air tanker is not complete. It needs a conventional internal gravity-based retardant tank, and obviously, a paint job that will hopefully include some professionally crafted tanker numbers on the tail.

Tanker 118 arrived at McClellan Airport on June 17, where maintenance, installation and testing of the Modular Airborne Firefighting System (MAFFS), and contractor pilot and maintenance crew training have been taking place, including training with a lead plane.

The aircraft and personnel will be working out of Forest Service Air Station McClellan (FSAS MCC) in Sacramento, California adjacent to the Coast Guard station at the airport. A search for a permanent base of operations for all seven HC-130H aircraft is underway.

While the Forest Service and Coast Guard will jointly own and manage Tanker 118 until all of the necessary modifications are complete, the Forest Service has contracted with Consolidated Air Support Systems (CASS) of Temecula, California for aircrew services and with DRS Technologies of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma for maintenance.  Tanker 118 will only fly wildfire suppression missions within 500 nautical miles of FSAS MCC so that it can return each night for maintenance by contract crews and support from Coast Guard crews.

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The Forest Service began to use air tankers to drop fire retardant to reduce the spread of wildfires in the 1950s. For the past 35 years, the Forest Service has used air tankers contracted from private industry.  

The 2014 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) authorized the transfer of seven HC-130H aircraft from the Coast Guard to the Forest Service for use in wildfire suppression.

The Forest Service, Coast Guard, and Air Force have been working together to complete the work that is needed on all seven HC-130H aircraft before they can begin flying wildfire suppression missions.

These modifications include demilitarization; performing wing and airframe modifications; designing, contracting for, manufacturing and installing retardant tanks; and equipping them with radios and other equipment.  

When Tanker 118 comes into service, the Forest Service will have a total of 22 air tankers available full-time for wildfire suppression this fire season.  The agency also has the ability to activate up to 8 military C-130s.

An additional HC-130H is expected to arrive in October to serve as a training aircraft.  All seven HC-130Hs air tankers are expected to be modified and transferred to Forest Service ownership by 2019

 

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The one in the pix I'm pretty sure is USCG #1721...it had the gray and white paint scheme.  USCG 1708 had the newer USCG orange and white paint scheme.  The plan was to remove the USCG markings off #1721 and let it go with the existing paint scheme (to be repainted later) so that would appear is what happened. 

Coast-Guard-HC-130H-1721-Photo-by-Alan-Stern-10-24-2014.jpg

Coast-Guard-HC-130H-1708-Photo-by-Andrew-Sieber-7-20-2009.jpg

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