Wings For a World On Fire

 


The prime minister is predictably crossing the country, pressing the flesh, and leaving a trail of billions of dollars in pre-election goodies. Nothing remotely unusual there.

What is unusual is the conflagration we call Canada where heatwaves, drought and wildfires are consuming thousands of square kms. of forests and blanketing the nation with smoke heavy with PM2.5 particulate matter that embeds in the lungs of those in its way.

Canada's not alone. The Pacific states are reeling. Wildfires are hitting Europe - Spain, Italy and especially Greece. Turkey, South Africa and Siberia, ablaze.  July set an all time wildfire record.  343 megatonnes of carbon were released into the atmosphere. Insult upon injury. 

And the future is ominous.

"There's two outlooks to think about: the first is the outlook for the rest of the summer, and the outlook for the rest of the summer is hot and dry," said James Johnston, a forest management and wildfire expert at Oregon State University.

"Then there's the outlook for summers to come, and that outlook is even hotter and drier."

This gives me an idea. Since the prime minister must find it exhausting dragging around that bag of election bucks, why not lighten the load by helping Victoria-based Viking Air, holder of the rights to the fabled Canadair CL-415 water bomber, to build a proper assembly line and start getting them to market.

Canada currently has 64 CL-215/415 water bombers. We could easily use a few dozen more. Other operators include the U.S., Spain, Italy, Greece, Thailand, Turkey, Croatia, France, Venezuela and Yugoslavia. A lot of those are long-in-the-tooth 215s on the verge of retirement.


Comments

  1. TrailblazerAugust 8, 2021 at 3:56 PM

    The aircraft would be far more useful than F35's.
    But Viking air is not Bombardier is it?

    TB

    ReplyDelete
  2. TrailblazerAugust 8, 2021 at 4:02 PM

    Not that Bombardier is involved with the F35!
    TB

    ReplyDelete
  3. The Disaffected LibAugust 8, 2021 at 11:24 PM

    No, it's 4,600 kms. to the west, TB.

    ReplyDelete

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