Uncle Helmut
New member
Cheaper maybe, but having to land to fill make for much poorer fire fighting capabilities not to mention putting a shitload of stress on an airframe not designed for it.
Very, very poor choice on the customer part.
The biggest problem of the CL215/415 was in being canadian... therefore considered inferior by our southern neighbours. Sad, really. They are the ones hurting the most from forest fires which are getting a bigger and bigger problem in the West coast.
But hey,since when are the yanks long term planners?
Also, about the Beaver... They go to extraordinary lenghts to refurbish old one and convert them to turbo power... That can't be all nostalgia, right? Somewhere, somehow BBD must have the complete blueprint set, why not do a Carroll Shelby and launch a Beaver "continuation" series?
Not that simple I know, but it seems to me that there could be a market for rugged bush planes like that.
DeHavilland don't have the rights anymore. They sold all out of production rights to Viking air. Viking air owns all the jigs, drawings, tech specs now. There was a rumour they wanted to start making the Beaver again.
As for the 415, the euro's LOVE them. Yanks are gealous hence why they don't buy them. Remember Avro Arrow?