Fire Season Water Bombing Helicopters to be Based at Essendon Airport
Essendon Airport will be the host airport for the Erickson Air-Cranes for the 2009/2010 fire season with the first of six scheduled to arrive on the 19th of November 2009.
The airport will initially host six Erickson Air-Cranes. Four, once flight tested, will be placed on standby in other states and two will remain based at Essendon Airport for the duration of the fire season.
The Erickson Air-Cranes can carry 9500 litres of water and can dump their entire water load in as little as 3 seconds. Rarely do pilots use this function, as the force with which a full load of water is released is so powerful that it decimates trees and anything else in its path.
Usually water is strategically dumped between 5 to 20 seconds with the pilot able to select from eight different levels of water disposal patterns.
Their tanks are fitted with a fast self-fill pump snorkel that allows them to hover-fill from a variety of small water sources in 45 seconds. They are also fitted with a drag along snorkel so they can fill from large lakes and oceans during forward flight in 30 seconds.
The Erikson Air-Cranes compliment the fire fighting activities of thousands of professional and volunteer rural fire fighters who work so bravely to battle rural fires during summer months.
At the conclusion of each fire season the Air-Cranes are dismantled, placed into shipping containers and transported to their next fire fighting destination.