I read with interest Pravda's article and W. Shedd's
research on the US Forest Service's excuses for not
using the IL-76 waterbomber.
http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/395/13498_Ilyushin.html

While I am obviously in a better postion than
most to refute these claims, point by point; and much
of the Forest Service/Shedd case is refuted here:
http://www.waterbomber.com/rebuttal.htm,
I cannot be objective.

I'd rather readers turn to third party opinion like that
of the Australasian Fire Authorities Council and
Dr. C. William Kauffman, of U Mich. Even to Californian
firefighter opinion from the Christian Science Monitor
from 1998: http://search.csmonitor.com/durable/1998/12/03/fp6s2-csm.shtml

These opinions are easily searched online. Each expert
recommends the IL-76 waterbomber.

The trouble with the US Forest Service's excuses is
that if the plane turns out to be even half as useful
as proponents say it is, and US Forest Service views
are dead wrong, the US Forest Service will wear this
failure just like US security agencies are wearing the
results of the 9/11 commission inquiry. Twenty four (24)
lives were lost as well as 3,900+ homes in Socal's fire
catastrophe of Oct-Nov '03. It has been reported that
insurance companies want to recover, despite the formidable
legal obstacles presented overcoming immunity from suit against
the government.

The US Forest Service's Joe Madar, (d) in his 1994-5
report following a Global Emergency Response joint
venture-sponsored UK test, named the IL-76 an "Emergency
Supplemental Air Tanker," carving out a US role for
the airplane and indicating more work with the airplane
should be done. More work has been done. A decade's
worth; fighting forest fires in Russia and elsewhere while
the US Forest Service sat on its decrepit fleet of large air
tankers and did nothing with the IL-76.

But Mr W. Shedd is right about one thing. It isn't
President Bush's fault the Il-76 waterbomber isn't in use
in the US right now. That I would lay squarely at
the feet of the Agriculture and Interior Secretariats,
who have shown failure of imagination.

All Global Emergency Response ever wanted out of the US
was leadership and fairness on this tanker. What they got
was a series of half-truths and obfuscations from the same
agency that needed this year to stand down all 33 larger
air tankers as the tanker program under which these tankers
were running lacked safety, integrity, and much of a future.

Some small percentage of wildfires, perhaps 5%; the Big Ones; does some very large percentage, perhaps 95%, of all wildfire damage.

An American aerial firefighting firm has seen the benefits of the
Be-200 optioning eight (8) of these fine airplanes, first deliveries reported to be for 2007.

The IL-76 "too big" excuse does not now stand, according to this:
http://www.fire.uni-freiburg.de/media/2003/news_20030905_us.htm
however, if you searched online, you will find a chorus of Beltway singers, led by Sect'y Gale Norton, extolling the virtues of a fresh fleet of small, single-engined tankers, swarming as bees to a fire and dropping non-contiguous loads like bambi-buckets from small helicopters. "Less", she claims, "is more."

According to Canada's Chief Fire Officer, Al Simard, "Any aircraft, killing any fire, pays for it for an entire season." His logic is irrefutable. First strike, there is a place for small, fixed-wing aerial firefighting tools. There is also a place for the large helicopter, the small helicopter, and, of course, the Be-200, whose liquids load is in the order of those 33 large air tankers the US retired for safety problems this year.

But in dire fire circumstances, such as those you cite from Southern California, where 24 people died and 3,900+ homes were destroyed, the IL-76 waterbomber simply has no substitutes. Other case examples come to mind: Canberra, Kelowna, and Los Alamos, being but three. And look what is happening in France and Portugal now and what has happened in 2003. Was there any reason 24 Portugese needed to die in wildfires there in '03 when there is the IL-76 waterbomber? No.

Each of the Il-76 waterbomber and the Be-200 have been demonstrated at NATO disaster exercises and beyond. There are no more excuses. People know how good these aircraft are and there is the sense that another el Nino will bring the world another "Year the Earth Burned" (WWF-International).

Have we developed a tolerance for frequent invasions of wildfire into our homes and our infrastructure? Will e.g. large gas plants like Canada's Pengrowth Judy Creek gas plant and nuclear materiel at Los Alamos be visited by 50-year-old DC-6 tankers forever?

Obviously not.

I refer you to these online threads:

http://engforum.pravda.ru/showthread.php3

and http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/showthread.php

See also: http://cms.firehouse.com/forums2/showthread.php