Posted by Wade (71.68.90.211) on July 06, 2010 at 06:14:51:
In Reply to: Slurry bombers retire---USFS seeks $2.5B to reinvent the wheel posted by Walt Darran on July 05, 2010 at 09:13:22:
25Js? yea right! What about 10 Js and 10 C27s with smaller units? Owned and flown for war/DOD and rotated prior to phase to civilians, well trained crews with USFS AFFS units installed,small and large. Seasons over, birds rotated back into DOD system. You can even ramp up and down as the fire season dictates. Keep the Guard flown fleet for emergency call out to augment and to cross train with the civilians during training time. WIN_WIN! Civilians get the awesome currency and training DOD crews get with oversight for public trust and USFS gets a highly skilled ready civilian IA fleet! Makes too much since. I also believe the phases and maintenance could be contracted to companies just like Greybull did for our C130Hs a few years ago.