Neptune Aviation’s big
firefighting jets are all back in Missoula for the winter, while their
owners watch the mailbox for news of their flying future.
“The
Forest Service is coming out with seven of what we’re calling the
Next-Gen 2.0 contracts,” Neptune Chief Executive Officer Ron Hooper
said. “We expected to see the notice on the first of November. We’re
anxious to see the RFP (request for proposals) so we can see how many
aircraft we’ve got working next year.”
Neptune still has three
years remaining on its “legacy” contract with the Forest Service that
covers six of its aging P2V propeller-driven retardant bombers and one
of its new BAe-146 jet bombers. But its one-season contracts for three
more BAe-146s have expired.
Meanwhile, the company has brought on
two more of the jets, for a total of six. The BAe’s are Neptune’s
answer to the Forest Service’s next-generation air tanker policy, which
calls for a private fleet of 18 to 28 modern aircraft able to carry at
least 3,000 gallons of fire retardant and travel at least 350 mph to
fight forest fires.
Five other companies have successfully landed
next-gen contracts. Several of those challenged Neptune’s bids for a
slice of the business and got its contract awards overturned.
The
competitors include two DC-10 jets belonging to 10 Tanker Air Carrier,
two RJ85 jets (similar to the BAe) from Aero Flite Inc., two MD87s from
Aero Air LLC and one C-130Q from Coulson Aviation.
The Forest
Service also can call on eight U.S. Air National Guard C-130s equipped
with modular airborne firefighting systems. Minden Air Corp. has
developed a BAe-146 for firefighting, but hasn’t met the requirements to
bring it into service.
“We fully expect all our five competitors to be making offers on these next contracts,” Hooper said.
And
that doesn’t count 72 single-engine air tankers, three water-scooper
planes and 668 heavy, medium and light helicopters under various types
of government firefighting contract.
***
Forest Service Director of Fire and Aviation Management Tom Harbour said the new contracts are still undergoing fine-tuning.
“We
hope within the next month or so to have that contract out,” Harbour
said last week. “We’re trying to learn from each iteration of this
contract, trying to make the changes that make a better contract for
vendors and for us.”
While the big requirements for payload and
speed haven’t changed, Harbour said a lot of work has gone into treating
all vendors on a level playing field. That’s hard when the new players
have brought on a wide variety of planes, from converted military C-130s
with removable retardant tanks to DC-10 jumbo jets using modified
helicopter tanks.
“One thing that I found fascinating had to do
with specific take-off characteristics at an airport of specific name,
specific altitude, temperature, set of conditions – very technical
stuff,” Harbour said. “We put something in, and vendors look at their
specs and say, ‘What did you mean?’ So we’ve found ourselves making
certain about all these details on runway lengths, temperatures, density
and altitude characteristics.”
At the same time, the Forest Service is researching the effectiveness of air tankers.
The
second phase of its “Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness” study
started in August. It compiles records of each retardant drop, type of
aircraft, mission intent and outcome, as well as the kinds of fire
behavior, weather, forest type and other factors describing the
incident. The study may run through 2020.
“We’ve got to be able
to more effectively measure the impact those air tankers and their drops
had on the objectives the on-the-ground firefighters are trying to
achieve," Harbour said. “We can have fairly nuanced objectives for
wildfire. Sometimes we want to put them out as quickly as we can, like
the Black Cat fire (north of Missoula’s Wye in 2007).
"To the
other side of the wildfire spectrum, we’d handle a fire inside the Bob
(Marshall Wilderness Area) a completely different way. We want to have
air tankers that are effective in both those situations. So we study
that, and then work back upstream to translate those into effective
contracts.”
Congress also provided the Forest Service with seven
C-130 cargo planes decommissioned from the U.S. Coast Guard. Harbour
said those planes can use the MAFFS tanks, but the agency wants to refit
them with larger gravity-fed tanks like the private companies have
developed.
He added that those planes would eventually be handed
over to private companies to fly and maintain while the government keeps
ownership over the next two or three years.
“I’m a firm believer
that the things we learn from healthy ecosystems, the diversity we see
there, can be a good idea for us,” Harbour said. “We expect to have good
competition. When we get into that situation, that results in a good
buy for the Forest Service.”
- Source: http://ravallirepublic.com
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