howwhatwhy.com

The biggest of the flying-boat style fire tankers, the [url=http://www.martinmars.com/]Martin Mars,[/url] can't take off with a full load of water. Too heavy. It must take off empty, then skim the surface to scoop up 7200 gallons of water before lurching into the sky and heading for the fire. As the water is dumped, the whole handling characteristic of the aircraft changes. Very cool.

Brute force is now provided by DC10 and 747 Water bombers. They'll water your peonies for ya.

[quote="Elefino"]What happens to water dropping 'copters and planes while they drop their load on a fire? They must be very hard to keep under control. [img]http://mysite.verizon.net/resyc4jn/hwwsmileys/images/driving.gif[/img]

[img]http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:xFtJZA5H2S1bVM:http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Cochran2004/Highlights/HueyDroppingWater.jpg[/img] [img]http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Y6FQXGStBeVTtM:http://blogs.tampabay.com/.a/6a00d83451b05569e2011570e1b858970c-900wi[/img][/quote]

I should think it would be!!!

I've done a bit of googling and found a few articles on the subject. It all seems to boil down to superb flying skills:

[url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_firefighting]Wikipedia[/url]
[url=http://www.martinmars.com/aircraft.htm]Coulson Flying Tankers[/url]
[url=http://boingboing.net/2009/09/01/big-ass-flying-boats.html]BoingBoing[/url] (nice links - scroll down)
[url=http://www.riversideca.gov/rpd/aviation/Aviation_Fire_Sup.htm]Riverside Police Department Report[/url]

What happens to water dropping 'copters and planes while they drop their load on a fire? They must be very hard to keep under control. [img]http://mysite.verizon.net/resyc4jn/hwwsmileys/images/driving.gif[/img]

[img]http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:xFtJZA5H2S1bVM:http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/AirShows/Cochran2004/Highlights/HueyDroppingWater.jpg[/img] [img]http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:Y6FQXGStBeVTtM:http://blogs.tampabay.com/.a/6a00d83451b05569e2011570e1b858970c-900wi[/img]