A Converted Boeing 747 for Wildland Fires ? Read on...

[Guest hoss]

From today's Wall Street Journal :

The Big Drop: Rivals

Offer Dueling Plans

For Firefighting Jets

An Updated Soviet Warplane

Scoops Up Tons of Water;

747 Can Hold Even More

IRKUTSK, Russia -- The sprawling Siberian warplane factory here recently added a peacetime product to its line of updated Soviet military jets: the Beriev-200, a jet plane that can scoop up and dump water on a forest fire.

A world away in the Arizona desert, at an airfield once used by the Central Intelligence Agency to fly covert missions, an American is hoping to trump the Russian effort. Del Smith's Evergreen International Aviation Inc., which helped airlift the last Americans from Saigon in 1975, is converting a Boeing 747 jumbo jet to fight fires with more than seven times the volume of water in the Be-200.

The battleground in this unlikely Cold War rematch is tinderbox wilderness everywhere from Alaska to Australia. The Be-200, powered by two jet engines perched atop its wings like Mickey Mouse ears, skitters along a body of water at 120 miles an hour and scoops up nearly 3,200 gallons of water in about 14 seconds. It's like plopping an elephant into a speeding pickup truck. The Be-200 then shoots skyward to shower its cargo on a raging inferno.

The amphibious aircraft, derived from a troop-carrying submarine hunter, uses a system for dropping water based on Soviet-era bombing equipment. Chief Executive Alexei Fyodorov admits the jet looks strange, but he brushes that aside: "It's like the child you love even if it has a crooked nose."

Evergreen test pilot Penn Stohr says his four-engine 747, with its familiar bulbous top, was too wild a concept for federal authorities a decade ago. "We kind of got laughed out of the conference room," he says.

Today, Tony Kern, aviation director at the Forest Service in Washington, says he is interested in both planes, the most dramatic and well-developed new entries in the field. The Russian model lists for $30 million. Evergreen plans to lease its craft at rates yet to be determined.

Mr. Kern wants new planes because recent crashes forced the U.S., in May, to ground its biggest firefighting aircraft -- aging propeller planes, some dating back to World War II -- just as wildfire season was beginning.

While the market for water-dumping aircraft isn't large, firefighters around the world need planes badly. U.S. authorities spent more than $1.3 billion fighting wildland fires last year. Almost five million acres go up in flames annually in the U.S., costing lives and billions of dollars in damage to property and natural resources. The global toll is far higher.

Aircraft can support firemen on the ground by dousing blazes, soaking unburnt areas and dropping skydiving firefighters known as smoke jumpers.

Aerial wildfire control in America is a cottage industry of gutsy entrepreneurs who work under government contracts on shoestring budgets. They fly brutish helicopters, modified crop-dusters and surplus military planes converted to carry water -- not jet aircraft with digital avionics.

But after the May grounding, the U.S. National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho, sent out a rallying cry for new planes engineered specifically to fight fires.

In his factory on the shore of Lake Baikal, the 52-year-old Mr. Fyodorov smelled opportunity. He had already built four firejets, two of them for the Russian government, and had five more on order. Here, he saw the chance to get into the potentially bigger U.S. market.

A construction manager's son who rose through the Soviet military-industrial complex, Mr. Fyodorov began his marketing education in 1989 while working as a manager at the Irkutsk airplane factory. Soviet authorities sent him to a three-month program at the University of Oklahoma business school in Oklahoma City. "It was another world," he recalls. But he picked up capitalism quickly, and this past spring, his OAO Irkut successfully listed on two Moscow stock exchanges. His 20% stake is valued at around $103 million.

Mr. Smith, Evergreen's 74-year-old founder and owner, got his start in 1960 fighting forest fires with two helicopters. The McMinnville, Ore., company then expanded into air transport and aircraft overhaul. Today, it carries U.S. mail domestically -- and carries United Nations humanitarian aid into war zones including Sudan and Afghanistan.

Evergreen also moves U.S. troops, their food and their weapons around the world. "We carry the bombs, the beans and the bullets," Mr. Smith boasts.

Evergreen says it has spent several million dollars and invested more than 20,000 man-hours in the firefighting "Supertanker" project over the past two years. It has built just one so far but sees a market for up to 15 of them, each fitted with removable tanks designed to keep the water from sloshing around. The plane can lug up to 25,000 gallons of water or fire retardant. The converted 747 carries the latest cockpit equipment for satellite navigation, collision-prevention and ground-avoidance, which means it might even fight fires at night -- which would be something new.

Evergreen wants to get its plane in service soon, but persuading authorities has been tough. Regulators questioned the wisdom of letting flames lick at the belly of a jumbo jet. Mr. Stohr explained that the 747 would mainly wet areas in front of a fire to control it, while ground crews fight the blaze itself.

Mike Padilla, head of aviation management at the California Department of Forestry, says he was fairly skeptical at first about the mammoth plane. It sounded like overkill. He worried that dropping so much water could hurt foliage, property or fire crews on the ground. But after seeing a test-drop at Evergreen's Arizona facility, he says it's no worse than a heavy rain.

The Be-200, in development since 1992, is also a powerhouse. As it scoops up water, flying just above the surface, it increases its weight by almost 40%. An average jet plane would sink under the load and rip apart on contact with the water. But onboard the Be-200, all one feels is a mild shaking, says German cameraman Thomas Voegeding, who took a test flight several months ago.

Mr. Fyodorov argues that the Be-200 can scoop-and-drop faster than a plane like the 747. To reduce its time on the ground loading water, Evergreen has developed a pumping system similar to those used by race-car pit crews. It sucks air out of the tank as it loads water.

Mr. Stohr at Evergreen says that scooping up water as the Be-200 does "is just silly," because submerged logs or other objects can flip a plane. "It's more of an airshow event than a firefighting event," he scoffs.

Irkut executives say that claim is overblown. U.S. aviation authorities will examine the threat in deciding whether to certify the Be-200. Mr. Fyodorov expects that to happen no sooner than 2007. But the plane may enter service in Europe later this year. Italy plans to test it soon.

Any sightings of this "beast" ?????

hoss49