Another AirShow.

[muffett.2008]

Very impromtu and entertaining, but not what I would like to see on a regular basis.

Gusty hot day, fire breaks out on the edge of town and screams toward Scone Mountain, within half an hour totally out of control.

Sirens screaming as the fire services came from everywhere but on the backfoot early, with unlimited fuel since the Mountain became a National Park.

The sky roiling with smoke,burning uphill with a 40-50k wind. on the otherside of the mountain houses and horse studs, all in the path of an out of control blaze wasting 200+ hectares in an hour.

Now for the airshow bit, Scone is home to Pays Air Service, besides Charter and Pilot training, along with Service and Maintainance and Fighter Restorations, they run a Fire Fighting Fleet of Aircraft that is often disbursed all over the world......this time there was no place like home.

So I was being entertained by the sight of water bombers and helicopters attacking a very fast moving fire front, controlled by a small twin jet engined plane who continually disappeared into the smoke seeking hotspots I presume.

Enter left stage, a large converted airliner dropping retardent, his two runs were pretty much straight toward me.....quite spectacular, I hope his drops were good, as the nearest strips large enough for him to land were 100 miles away.

They kept attacking that blaze all afternoon, by dusk they had it downgraded, which is good, because the fire had taken out one of the towers used for night landing.
The mountain is a red glow tonight, smoldering piles and fiery sparks tell us that wind tomorrow could be a bloody nuisance.

In the morning we will have an idea of property loss, hopefully not to bad, but thats one air show I would have preferred to have missed.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.