FORUM

Due to the strikes and uncertainty of the bus, I took 4 girls to Prades this morning as they had exams, and returned to collect them this afternoon.
Around 15.30 at Vinca there were 2 planes, hopefully on practice runs taking in water.
The road was like a car park with drivers stopping and filming them, fantastic sight . I have never seen them close up 'at work' like that before, superb.

Did you get any photos ?

unfortunately I have a 10quid Samsung that is about 8 years old. No camera

It is at momments like that I feel I should up grade or nick one of the kids top of the range all singing all dancing gadgets.

I must admit I wouldnt miss my phone as a phone but I would miss it as a camera. Got a lovely picture of cows, calves and a large bull going from low to high pasture!!

We were moored up in the bay at Paulilles last year when the fires were raging and three Canadaires suddenly swooped. They went so close over the top of the boat that the pages of my book (BK as in before Kindle) rustled, then dipped into the sea to fill up. fascinating but terrifying as there were swimmers dotted around the bay and scuba divers. Imagine getting scooped up and dropped onto a fire?? I say it with a smile, but it really did look dangerous. Was suprised they came into the bay and not further out to sea. Too stunned to take photos and by the time I got my camera set up, they were already distant.

They really are a multifunction aircraft and they are not only water bombers. They are also called to do rescues at sea and Douane duties as well and they can change rolls in flight. They pick up anything up to 6000+ ltrs of water in just 12 seconds.

Although they are slightly larger than the Grumand Tracker they can drop much much more on fires close to the sea because of their turnround time. They can even beat the much larger Dash8 that the French have and that carries almost 10,000 litres.

We have 2 Trackers based here at Salvasa through the summer and we can tell how close the fires are by the height that they fly over us. A few years back there were 2 August fires just a couple of miles East of us and I got some superb video of the second one. The aircraft were so low over us that you could read the registration!