Clear your defensible space

[MarkV]

Robert,
A couple of years ago, I spent a few days in Barcelona, Spain while my wife was on a layover. (she is a flight attendant) Barcelona is a harbor city with a ring of mountains around it that were burning. There were 5 or 6 of these large tanker planes skimming the bay for water day an night the whole time we were there. I was told it was a major fire. Sure was impressive to watch those planes. I would seem that that has to be some tricky flighing given that they are inches off the water and taking on a lot of weight.

MarkV

 

[StoneHeartFarm]

GlueGuy,

The wife worries about tornados. I don't. They're pretty rare here and never very big, not like the plains states. I worry more about lightning strikes (Michigan is #2 in lightning related deaths) and the roof collapsing from the snow load every winter. (So what did I do, built in the middle of a field on top of a hill /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif). Blasted big lakes increase both the snow and the lightning. /w3tcompact/icons/crazy.gif Actually, living on top of the mountain could have some advantages, especially if you get mad at the neighbors down below. I'm talkin big potato shooter here. /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

SHF

 

[RPM]

Of course, you guys have all heard the mystery story about the man found dead in a forest, miles from the sea, with scuba gear on? The question is - how did he get there ...

 

[RPM]

Re: the flying part of taking on water. There's a couple of pilots who can talk to it in more detail, but I believe that the process is simplified by the ground effect - the air just above the ground is denser and provides more lift.

The Soviets used to do a line in very large military planes that would take advantage of this for transporting heavy military equipment long distances - aka the Ekranoplan. This type of plane is known as a WIG in the west - Wing In Ground effect if I remember rightly.

More trivia from RPM ...

 

[JATO_RaT]

Since these planes use the water to land on, they are pretty hydro dynamic. Its interesting to see the force of aerial equipment they have out here in the West to knock down fires. On any given major fire, the freeway will shutdown if smoke gets bad and entire caravans of dozers from D9's to D4's from CDF (CA. Division of Forestry) make there way to the fire. When its really bad even the local folks with heavy equipment get called in. I assume that since the Eastern portion of the US gets intermittant rainfall throughtout the year its less of a problem. Just in case any of you folks from back on the right coast did not know, out here in the West, the rain shuts off about in May and won't be back until October or November. From June throught October its all irrigation.
The fires are typically in the mountains up in the Sierra Nevadas or the foothills leading up to the mountains (where RobertN and I live) Rat...