In late June lightning started a forest fire in Rocky Mountain National Park. The National Forest Service responding by dispatching several of its fire bombing aircraft to Rocky Mountain Regional Airport (about 2 miles from my house) to fight the fire. On Saturday June 26 one of those aircraft, a Lockheed P-2E Neptune, suffered brake failure while taxing into the ramp and crashed through the airport fence onto 120th Ave. There were no injuries, but one of the engines did catch on fire. As if this wasn't interesting enough (nothing happens in my neighborhood) my friend Mark was there to capture it. His resulting image was then published on Airlines.net!
P-2E Crash at Rocky Mountain Regional Airport
Photo by Mark Swanson - well done Mark!
Originally developed for maritime / anti-submarine patrol, the P-2 first flew in 1945. It was later one of the few aircraft fitted with both piston and jet engines. The P-2's 18 cylinder radial engines make a very distinctive sound. I was working in my garage on the day of the crash and when I heard it overhead I dropped my tools and ran out into the street to watch it fly over.
A P-2 on Submarine Patrol
(you can see small jet engines outboard of its radial engines)
I was recently in Missoula, MT home of the Forest Service fire bomber headquarters and noticed a BAE-146, also known as the BAC Jet in fire bomber configuration. It was interesting because the BAC Jet was employed by several domestic airlines for regional service well into the first part of this decade. The medium-sized, all-jet fire bomber was a stark contrast to the majority of the Forest Service fleet of piston or turbo prop P-2's and P-3's.
The BAE-146 Bac Jet
The BAC Jet wasn't the first four engine, jet fire bomber. Evergreen's 747 has it beat by a few years and is a brilliant example of the evolving topic of this post - Fire Bombers are Cool!
Evergreen 747 Fire Bomber
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