Sedalia Dave Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 3D interactive tour of Global SuperTankers 747-400 converted to fight wildfires. It's been a long, convoluted flight path for the water-bombing 747 to get here. The airframe originally served Japan Air Lines for nearly 20 years before finding a new home at the now-defunct Evergreen International Aviation. Evergreen had ambitious plans to convert four of its 747 cargo ships into firefighting aircraft. Only one of the airplanes was fully converted, and it wound up parked in the Arizona desert waiting on expensive deferred maintenance. Financial woes forced Evergreen into bankruptcy and the supertanker seemed doomed to live out its existence in the boneyard. Fast forward a few years and along comes a new business called Global SuperTankers with ambitious plans to rescue the flying firetruck. Recruiting a large team of original Evergreen crew and technicians, Global SuperTankers stripped all the glorious guts from the original Evergreen 747-100 and moved them to the newer and more powerful 747-400. It's this plane that could soon be dropping huge quantities of firefighting compounds from the sky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dutch Wheeler Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 Interesting visual technology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cliff Hanger #3720LR Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 Here's a photo of the 747 in operation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Original Lumpy Gritz Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 Crown fire a couple of years ago. We had one 747 clear our house after their drop, buy 300' at most, and he was at full power too. You could hear the windows shake and feel the ground 'rumble' as he passed overhead. OLG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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