Who Knew?

Sean and I met a sweet couple on the day cruise to Juneau who are from Whitehorse. Brian is a pilot for Conair Aviation and Patty works with the Canadian government. They have got to be the most generous and amazing people we have had the pleasure to get to know on our trip.

Brian showed up at the shop yesterday to take a look at our motorhome before he had to report to work. Sean and I were just about to head into town to grab a bite to eat and Brian was looking for a milkshake, so we ended up going to Tim Horton's for lunch (btw, has very good sandwiches and soups). Once we were finished eating, we followed Brian out to the airport for a tour of the Whitehorse Airtanker Base. Conair Aviation is contracted by the Canadian Government for their aerial fire fighting capabilities. They use fire retardant to form a perimeter around wildfires to keep them from spreading, which is Brian's specialty.

In this picture you can see the liquid on the ground, the fire retardant, is red due to dye. They dye it red so that it can easily be seen from the air and that way they know where the last dump happened that way they don't cause a break in the "chain" of the retardant. What good would it do to leave holes for the fire to jump across?

He gave us a tour of his plane (Air Tractor AT802) and taught us how the plane operates. It dumps the fire retardant from the tanks on the bottom of the plane and it can hold up to 800 US gallons. There is a control panel on the inside of the plane that the pilot uses to tell the computer how much retardant to dump at any one time.

The amount and where the retardant is dumped is determined by their "bird dog/air dog" who is essentially their eye in the sky that assesses the fire. The plane their "air dog" uses is pictured below.

The Whitehorse Airtanker Base also uses a Lockheed 188 Electra, which holds 3,000 gallons of retardant. This was an amazing machine to see! It was built in 1959 and most of the cockpit was made of wood.

All of the planes are modified to be as light as possible so they have more carrying capacity when it comes to the liquid fire retardant. This is why you see a ladder going into the Electra instead of it having steps. The picture below, I stole from Brian's Facebook, is Brian and his plane in action in June of this year.