Big-ass flying boats full of water save LA from fiery doom!

A ginormous amphibious air tanker called the Martin Mars just made a massive water drop over Mount Wilson, the hill northeast of Los Angeles where the century-old Mount Wilson Observatory and nearby TV, radio and cell phone towers are all located. The World War II-era flying boat literally water-bombed the peak today to douse flames from the Station Fire, which has burned 127,000 acres (the largest in LA County history).

Here's an LA Times pic of this bad boy in action over Mt. Wilson. Snip from the accompanying story:

Los Angeles County Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Martin said, "We are going to burn, cut, foam and gel. And if that doesn't work, we're going to pray. This place is worth a lot, but it's not worth dying for. "
In a worst-case scenario, firefighters were expected to retreat to the safety of the observatory parking lot or seek refuge in the concrete and steel basement of the 105-year-old, 100-inch telescope observatory. A Martin Mars air tanker, also known as a Super Scooper, dropped 7,500 gallons of water on Mt. Wilson.

In previous BB posts about the LA fires, I mentioned these giant 747s that have also been spurting water from the sky, to extinguish the blaze. Wired has a nice photo gallery of those guys in action here. And Popular Science has some interior shots of the 747s. Spoiler: they are friggin huge inside.

The managers of the observatory are now very optimistic that the historic site will make it okay.

Below: Astronomer Mike Brown has been tweeting while the area around the Mt. Wilson Observatory burns, and he spotted the WWII flying boat in action.

Previously:

Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.

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jpixl

That’s an excellent story title, Xeni!
adamnvillani

Nobody’s conflating the Martin Mars with a 747. Follow the links in the post, and you’ll see that they’re linking to photos of, indeed, a 747 in action as a water-bomber. There are multiple planes of several different types being used for this kind of duty.
Anonymous

That’s not a plane. THIS is a plane:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/09/evergreen_aviations_747_supert.html
lemonodor

Evergreen International Aviation, which owns that 747 fire tanker, supposedly has links to the CIA, with some claiming that the company flew extraordinary rendition flights.
Nelson.C

Dylan G, I imagine that fire is worse for plant growth, generally speaking.
Anonymous

At the risk of sounding ‘me first’, BC is seriously suffering from forest fires as well. Why are our planes headed to LA?
GlenBlank

@10: Most of the locally-available fixed-wing tankers are already at work on this fire or one of the other, smaller, fires.

Only seven Martin Mars flying boats were ever built, and the two based in Canada are the only two still flying.

There are currently 6 other wildfires burning in various locations around Calfornia. None of them are as large as the Station Fire, but resources are needed to keep them small.

The Martin Mars joins other members of the current Station Fire fixed-wing air attack team, which today included the Evergreen 747 Supertanker, the 10Tanker DC-10 jumbo tanker, two Canadair 415 ‘Super Scoopers’ (leased annually by the City of LA), and a whole passel (I’ve lost count) of Cal Fire and USFS SN-6 and P-3 Orion tankers.

@DylanG: The scooper aircraft and the bucket/snorkel helicopters usually use fresh-water lakes or reservoirs rather than ocean water. I believe the Mars was refilling at Lake Elsinore today.
Anonymous

Hey, “Previous Anonymous”, these were never “Bombers”. They were originally built as troop transports. And I know one of the pilots.
Anonymous

#10, 15:

“The Hawaiian Mars is under contract with the United States Forest Service June 15 to Nov 15th and will be stationed in Lake Elsinore California.”

(from the Coulson Flying Tankers site linked below the picture of the ginormous flying boat atop this page)
Anonymous

@NelsonC, actually no. All of the places that are burning right now; California, BC, Greece… are ecosystems that are dependent on fire. It’s just that we’ve gone and built all of our million dollar homes in the middle of fire-prone chaparral.
GlenBlank

@23 Madlibrarian:

‘Hawaii’ is just the name of that particular aircraft.

Except for the prototype, each of the individual Martin Mars flying boats was given the name of an island or island chain: Hawaii, Philippine, Marianas, Marshall, Caroline, and Hawaii II.

‘Hawaii Mars II’ replaced the original ‘Hawaii Mars’, which burned and sank in 1945.

It and ‘Philippine Mars’ are the only two that currently survive. Both are owned and operated by Coulson Flying Tankers. ‘Philippine Mars’ is currently undergoing renovation, and is expected back in service in 2010.

@15 Anonymous: You ask, “Why are our planes headed to LA?”

Simple. They’re not “your planes.”

They belong to a private company, and that private company has leased the Hawaii Mars to the US Forest Service from June 15 to September 15 annually since 2007. During that period, it’s based at Lake Elsinore in California.

@17 Anonymous: The original Mars prototype, ‘The Old Lady’, was, in fact, designed and built as a long-range patrol boat and bomber. The US Navy decided its heavy-lift capability made it more useful as a transport, and converted it to that use.

The aircraft was extensively redesigned, and six more were constructed as purpose-built transports, providing long-range airlift from NAS Alameda to NAS Honolulu from just after WWII until 1959.
Rob Cruickshank

There’s a Martin Mars pool on flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/martinmars/
My sister lives in Port Alberni, and I’ve seen these planes close-up. There’s nothing else like them.
egebhardt

Xeni –
Your tweets and updates re Station Fire have been most helpful. Definitely need some “big ass” flying boats along with the amazing fire depts to kill this fire.
Anonymous

From this I choose to take away that big asses retaining water are a Good Thing.

Thank you.
dylan g

Xeni,

Isn’t salt water bad for plant growth?
Antinous / Moderator

Yeah, it’s all fun and games until they scoop up a scuba diver.
Anonymous

“Fire Department Battalion Chief Steve Martin” Hey, I remember that movie!
Zippy Gonzales

Got an overwhelming urge to watch Magnolia for some reason.
tim

See http://www.martinmars.com/aircraft.htm and http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/16338/Martin-Mars-Waterbombers-on-Sproat-Lake-Port-Alberni-1 for some details.

These beasties live (normally) in the lake across the mountain from my place. It’s not that uncommon to see them roaring across the sky. Hmm, let’s see if the google earth placemark will work here….
OK, nope. Right, look for 49Â°17’17.30″N by 124Â°56’5.66″W You can see the two bombers there in the water.
TheMadLibrarian

Does anyone else find it oddly appropriate that a MARS tanker is being used to save the Mt. Wilson observatory?

FWIW, I had no idea Hawaii had one of these bad boys!
jaytkay

The Mt Wilson 100-inch telescope was the Hubble of its day, from 1917 almost into the 1950s. Edwin Hubble used it to figure out that there were galaxies outside our own Milky Way!

With modern instrumentation, it’s still productive.

Losing it would break my heart.

And those towers in the LA Times photo – I believe they carry most of LAs TV and radio. Losing them would kinda suck, too.
Guysmiley

#20: Water isn’t like bombs, it’s not as dense per pound so you need more volume than what tactical aircraft have.

Instead, you’d be better off using cargo aircraft. Something which they already thought of.
mdh

This clip, shot the 29th on the Station fire, is pretty impressive.
Anonymous

Am I the only one slightly irritated by the conflation of these aircraft with 747s?

Just because it’s an enormous plane doesn’t mean it’s a 747. A 747 is a passenger jet, and first flew in the 60′s, I think. This is a WWII-era aircraft that doesn’t carry passengers and doesn’t have jet engines. They’re both huge, but they’re completely different aircraft.

(Perhaps this is just a result of years of going to the EAA with my grandfather when I was a kid…)
Anonymous

I knew I’ve seen that flying boat before!

It’s a company here in BC, Canada that owns and operates those, I’ve seen them at a local airshow waterbombing the shit out of things… I’d actually hate to think of what would happen if they ever actually had been filled with real bombs.

I’ve gotta wonder though, why LA is outsourcing Canadian waterbombers to fight their fires. I can’t imagine how exchange rates would make it cheaper to fly in a hundred thousand pound aircraft from a thousand miles away than to hire one locally… Either way, I’m glad we can help.. Good luck guys!
Scuba SM

I’d like to see a simple conversion kit that would convert any military aircraft to a water bomber. Something that can be mounted to the standard aircraft hardpoints, and dropped on the fire. We still have a considerable force of B-52s and other heavy bombers with large payloads. They wouldn’t be as effective as dedicated tankers, but we’ve got more of them, and you wouldn’t need the same capital expenditure to have the conversion kits as you would to have a tanker built, maintained and on standby.

If you made water bombs, like giant water balloons filled with water or retardant that attached to aircraft hardpoints, you could even use aircraft like the A-10, which has a respectable payload and whose whole purpose is to drop things very accurately and very close to the front line.