Tanker 910 - Design

Design

The water or retardant is carried in three center-line belly tanks. The tanks have internal baffles to prevent fluid shift (and consequent shift in center of gravity) while in flight, and sit with a 15-inch (38 cm) ground clearance. All three tanks can be filled simultaneously on the ground in eight minutes. The retardant is gravity-fed out of the tanks, and the entire load can be dumped in eight seconds, although the actual drop rate is computer controlled by the flight crew in order to produce the desired retardant spread over the fire lines. The aircraft is capable of applying a line of retardant 300 ft (91 m) wide by 1 mile (1.6 km) long.

The number of drops it can make in a day is only limited by the time it takes to reload the aircraft with water/fire retardant and fuel, as well as its need for a proper landing field, which may well be a considerable distance from the fire. Because of the aircraft's limited maneuverability, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) officials have said that it will not be used on all fires, and will not be used as an initial attack aircraft. One drop from Tanker 910 is equivalent to 12 drops from a Grumman S-2 Tracker. Initially, the aircraft is intended to be operated primarily in California, and the entire state will be serviced from the plane's Victorville base, but in 2007 CDF began looking into setting up a second operations base at the former Mather Air Force Base near Sacramento, California. 10 Tanker Air Carrier announced in 2007 that a second aircraft would be converted to tanker usage for the 2008 fire season.

In 2009, Tanker 910 faced competition from the newly-introduced Evergreen 747 Supertanker, a Boeing 747 which was converted to tanker use by Evergreen International Aviation and which is able to carry up to 20,500 U.S. gallons (78,000 liters) of fire retardant.