Summary: Instead of a cargo of bored business men and excited holiday makers, this aged DC-10 was carrying 12,000 gallons, thats 45,000 ltrs of bright red liquid in a huge tank attached to the centre of the fuselage. This is the story of the fire fighting water bombers.<br> <br> <br> <br> A vast DC10 converted to flying tanker operations<br> <br> <br> <br> A forest fire<br> <br> <br> <br> Mixing fire retardant<br> <br> <br> <br> A fire lookout<br> <br> <br> <br> The Morton Lake hotshots<br> <br> <br> <br> The dangers of a wildfire are considerable, even during an evacuation<br> <br> <br> <br> The dangers of manoeuvring a big aircraft at low level are considerable<br> <br> <br> <br> Other aircraft are converted into water bombers like this PBY-6A Catalina<br> <br> <br> <br> Helicopters deliver water from buckets<br> <br> <br> <br> One of the few purpose built water bombers, the Canadair Superscooper<br> <br> <br> <br> The magnificent Mars water bomber<br> <br> <br> <br> Images under Creative Commons licence with thanks to the USAF, John McColgan, signal mirror, DarrenRD, Tim Peterson, the USN, SSgt Ed Drew, Pierre Bona and Alex Juorio.
