Very interesting, Chris! It took me a few minutes to understand what crimes
had been committed, though.
Chris
> On 5 Sep 18, at 15:15, Chris Trask <christrask@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> There was an item on the morning news here about a shortage of pilots for
> the fire bomber outfits. They showed a short video of an Aero Union C-130A
> making a drop run. Two decades ago I seriously pursued doing that as there
> were a number of outfits that had acquired C-130As from the Davis-Monthan
> depot. But then, a fellow by the name Roy Reagan rose to the surface and
> made a real mess of things.
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Forest_Service_airtanker_scandal
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Forest_Service_airtanker_scandal>
>
> Seems that Evergreen Air (Mingus, OR) took offense to T&G Aviation using
> theirs to haul oil rig equioment in Kuwait after the first Persian Gulf war.
> I remember one of those returning to Chandler Memorial Airpark covered in oil
> residue from the oilwell fires over there. Took them two days to scrub it
> down and remove it.
>
> The basis of the problem was that the C-130As were only supposed to be
> used for fire suppression, but Aero Union had designed the refit with a
> removable tank so that you could haul cargo in the off-season. That was a
> boon to the operators as it improved their profit margin, which they couldn't
> do with the DC-6, DC-7, P-2, P-3, and other aircraft as the slurry tank was
> fixed and took up the cargo space.
>
> As you can see from the Wikipedia article, this whole episode was a real
> mess, and overall I'm glad that it simply passed me by. I was on a
> first-name basis with Woody Grantham of T&G aviation, and I was going out
> there 2-3 times a week to go over the differences in the A model. But then
> everything came crashing down and that opportunity ended.
--
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