airattackimages
Charter Member
You're welcome Milton, I think it's awesome that you guys work so hard on these things. I'm glad to see there are a lot of air tanker buffs here as well. SOH is a great place.
Anyone interested in seeing photos of air tankers in action, you can check out my website. That's my side business. I shoot wildland firefighting aircraft in action. www.airattackimages.com. In particular check out the USFS tab and Cal Fire aircraft tab.
Slund is correct on everything he said. I didn't think modeling such advanced details would be possible, but yes... the retardant typically is placed right up against the active flame front and you'll usually see the fire affected by the dusting (mist) from the retardant falling next to it... Steam, reduced flame lengths/intensity, etc. Retardant is generally dropped right next to the advancing fire except in cases where the fire is moving too quickly.
--For instance the La Brea Fire last season in Southern California was moving so fast at one point, and had such expansive lines being drawn around it, that the tankers were dropping 1/4 mile ahead of the flames. Like Slund alluded to, tactics like that are used in cases where the fire is going to get around the retardant before following tankers are able to arrive and tie into the line.
I don't want to get this subject off the topic, which is of course the awesome F7F project. But this seems like a good group of people for me to ask this question around. It sounds like Slund has some good fire scenery that I'd love to check out if he shares it, but I was wondering if it was possible to have a fire scenery in FSX, even if it was very simple and didn't have flame -- that had a gigantic pyrocumulus header (smoke plume) that wouldn't move or disappear the way clouds do in the sim. Something that actually rose off the ground and looked correct to depict a huge column of smoke. Like I said even if it had no flame, at least it would give us something to fly to and return from. If it's possible to tweak the weather features in the game to do this, it would also be great because you could get the idea of what it's like to fly through the smokey skies on the fringes of the fire. I'm envisioning the Station Fire burning in the Angeles National Forest and being able to fly the 60 miles to and from Fox Field while seeing this gigantic smoke column rising 30,000 feet into the air in front of you.
Anyone interested in seeing photos of air tankers in action, you can check out my website. That's my side business. I shoot wildland firefighting aircraft in action. www.airattackimages.com. In particular check out the USFS tab and Cal Fire aircraft tab.
Slund is correct on everything he said. I didn't think modeling such advanced details would be possible, but yes... the retardant typically is placed right up against the active flame front and you'll usually see the fire affected by the dusting (mist) from the retardant falling next to it... Steam, reduced flame lengths/intensity, etc. Retardant is generally dropped right next to the advancing fire except in cases where the fire is moving too quickly.
--For instance the La Brea Fire last season in Southern California was moving so fast at one point, and had such expansive lines being drawn around it, that the tankers were dropping 1/4 mile ahead of the flames. Like Slund alluded to, tactics like that are used in cases where the fire is going to get around the retardant before following tankers are able to arrive and tie into the line.
I don't want to get this subject off the topic, which is of course the awesome F7F project. But this seems like a good group of people for me to ask this question around. It sounds like Slund has some good fire scenery that I'd love to check out if he shares it, but I was wondering if it was possible to have a fire scenery in FSX, even if it was very simple and didn't have flame -- that had a gigantic pyrocumulus header (smoke plume) that wouldn't move or disappear the way clouds do in the sim. Something that actually rose off the ground and looked correct to depict a huge column of smoke. Like I said even if it had no flame, at least it would give us something to fly to and return from. If it's possible to tweak the weather features in the game to do this, it would also be great because you could get the idea of what it's like to fly through the smokey skies on the fringes of the fire. I'm envisioning the Station Fire burning in the Angeles National Forest and being able to fly the 60 miles to and from Fox Field while seeing this gigantic smoke column rising 30,000 feet into the air in front of you.
