Firefighting Chinook from Down Under now used in France

Aircraft Rotary Wing
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The New South Wales Rural Fire Service has deployed a CH-47D Chinook and a Bell 412 to fight fires in France. This marks the Service’s first-ever European deployment. The aircraft is accompanied by 24 highly skilled aerial and ground crew, and transported to France in partnership with the Australian Defence Force. The Chinook, equipped with an 11,300-litre belly tank, has the largest payload of any firefighting helicopter in Australia. Working with the Bell 412, it is also capable of conducting waterbombing missions at night. Should it be tasked to do so in France, it will be the first time night-time waterbombing has been undertaken in the country.

Well done Australia and thanks ! :+1:

H.P.

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Germany recently “fielded” ex-Luftwaffe C-160 Transall, now in civil hands for wildfire fighting. There is also an Einbausatz for A400M to transport water.
https://www.flugrevue.de/zivil/neues-deutsches-loeschflugzeug-mit-superkraft-transall-c-160d-vor-dem-comeback/

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You’re most welcome, we’ll accept a donation of your best burgundies in exchange :wine_glass: :wine_glass: :wine_glass: . I just hope those two don’t fly any closer than that, like tragically happened in Greece a couple of weeks ago :crossed_fingers:

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when they’ve finished in France they might need to fly north to England judging by the government warning beamed to my phone lastnight

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Love their paint schemes. I have been seeing these fly over my town often going north to fight fires in Northern California. They look cool in civilian colors.

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When I saw this story last night it got me thinking, do we even have any fire-fighting aircraft in the UK? This seems to happen more often and all I ever see on the news turn up to put them out are the usual fire engines.

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I’m not sure these are still available…

EDIT : they are (the webstore is just closed until August 24 :sweat_smile: )

https://www.dekls.com.au/

H.P.

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2022 article

https://www.aerosociety.com/news/a-burning-issue-does-the-uk-need-aerial-firefighting-aircraft/

updated info :
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/government-commission-firefighting-planes-wildfires-west-midlands-5Hjdg4d_2/

H.P.

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What a timely post. I just started acquiring the parts to build a Cal Fire 301 Huey.

Cal Fire 301 Huey 2
Cal Fire 301 Huey 2960×520 128 KB

I found decals and a 3D printed water tank for underneath.

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I think the RAF has some fire fighting ability but we don’t have any dedicated fire fighting aircraft as fast i know… I have a friend who is up in the Strathclyde fire and rescue service, i will ask him.

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I’m guessing something similar out of the back of a Chinook?

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Belly tank installation (Coulson RADS L)

https://youtu.be/k0cjnXndHFs

H.P.

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Gino, who makes the water tank? I think draw decals does a lot of the CalFire stuff. I see these regularly flying back and forth from my house. Typically Hury as you can hear it coming miles away.

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I found the tank on eBay from a private seller. I just got it over the weekend and it looks very nice.

eBay seller for tank

I also got the decals off eBay from Heli Scale Quality out of Germany. He has a bunch of helicopter decal sets for military, law enforcement, firefighting, and civilian helos. I used a set of his decals on my USMC UH-34D conversion a while ago. They were very nice.

Heli Scale Quality

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Thanks for the links. I have seen those decals before on eBay but was bit skeptical about them and their quality. I’ll give it a try and see how thin or thick they are. Thanks.