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Has Australia considered sharing a firefighting aircraft fleet with a country in the northern Hemisphere such as Canada? (toronto.citynews.ca)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/australianpolitics@aussie.zone
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Link is to article about Canada's great need for firefighting aircraft.

Call me crazy... but 99% of the time wouldn't a shared firefighting aircraft fleet shared between Australia and Canada or perhaps a European nation only be needed in one or the other place at any one given time of year??

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[–] [S] 1 point 2 weeks ago (4 children)

For the helicopters you can put them on cargo ships and then it is cheap as heck.

For the fixed wing aircraft, I don't know is two cross hemisphere flights a year really more carbon footprint than two identical fleets of highly expensive materially intensive aircraft?

I don't know.... maybe but I kind of doubt it since if I wanted to buy an airplane it would be much cheaper to buy it from the otherside of the world premade than attempt to build it myself... so?

I think it is an interesting question to ponder is what I am saying.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    I didn’t even think of the helicopters, but yes, that transport is relatively easy. My experience is tangentially related to the fixed wing jet tankers.

    I think that firefighting activity stresses airframes more than usual as well, so I was also estimating from that maintenance side.

    I figure that it could be done, generally, but timelines would probably be tight and costs could escalate quickly, both financially and environmentally.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    How long does a cargo ship take to get between Australia and Europe or the North American west coast? I imagine it’d be a few weeks at least to LA, and longer to, say, Piraeus or Marseille via the Suez Canal, during which you hope neither side needs those helicopters.

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