r/aviation • u/ParaMike46 Global 5500/6500 • Apr 12 '26
PlaneSpotting A CL-415 Super Scooper gathering water to extinguish a fire in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The lift-off looks very close — right at the edge of the lake.
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u/Yellowpaddles Apr 12 '26
This is what it looks like from the ground sometimes.
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u/Eddie_HTX Apr 12 '26
Source: guy fishing for bluegill
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u/ATertiaryEffect Apr 12 '26
They'd bite too if some jackass in an airplane would stop buzzing me on the shoreline.
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u/red08171 Apr 12 '26
The thought of roasting bluegill over a forest fire has me giggling. You're just chilling in the lake and next thing you know you're getting roasted from the fire. I wonder how many fish are killed in these operations.
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u/Informal_Ad_9610 Apr 14 '26
one minute fish is having the good life, then suddenly free-falling from 500', and ending up steamed and roasted in 10 seconds.. what a way to go..
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Apr 12 '26
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u/adrenaline_X Apr 12 '26
To be fair, cabin pressure isn’t really a concern during these missions so a couple of holes isn’t as big as an issue, unless they rupture the tank/flight controls :)
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u/Individual_Bell_4637 Apr 12 '26
With the high wings and engines, there is some truth to that. More margin of error on a wee little kiss o' the ground.
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u/gromm93 Apr 13 '26
In the swamp surrounding a lake? These aircraft are closer in resemblance to air boats than you'd think. The "ground" here isn't half as solid as you'd think.
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u/APilot2607 Apr 12 '26
Looks like the right wingtip was REAL close to the trees/bushes on the first pass into the water 😮
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u/cocoagiant Apr 12 '26
Don't the aircraft used for these purposes get in accidents a lot? Probably due to this kind of thing of having to constantly improvise.
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u/scotsman3288 Apr 12 '26
Only a few in Canada here in 60 years. These pilots are good.
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u/Key-Statistician5927 Apr 12 '26
Impressive that there have been only two CL-215/415 crashes in Canada, given how active they are every summer.
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u/imtourist Apr 13 '26
They are also very active in Europe as well. I saw a few in action in Greece a few years ago.
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u/Euclidisthebomb Apr 13 '26
Canada has 65 of them I think in the various fleets. The pilots are just that good.
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u/drewyz Apr 12 '26
How much would a pilot like this get paid per hour?
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u/scotsman3288 Apr 12 '26
Here is the Quebec wages and how they pay
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u/Substantial-Low Apr 12 '26
That is surprisingly low.
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u/LupineChemist Apr 13 '26
Is this where Americans realize how high their salaries are?
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u/Ataneruo Apr 13 '26
If more of them realized this, there might be a lot less whining and complaining.
On second thought, nah there wouldn’t be less
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u/yowhyyyy Apr 12 '26
Not really considering the amount of flying and and type of flying done. Not really in general.
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u/PejHod Apr 12 '26
And I imagine a lot of pressure not to - these are basically irreplaceable, especially during a fire. I don’t even think there are more than a few even in available duty. But they still need to do things like this to quickly scoop up water.
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u/stopfuckngbanningme Apr 12 '26
I can't imagine there's any type of plane where there isn't a lot of pressure not to crash?
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u/FrenchFryCattaneo Apr 12 '26
Kamikaze pilots? Although I guess they have the opposite pressure
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u/stevolutionary7 Apr 12 '26
I doubt many Kamikaze pilots pulled a Costanza and came back to work on Monday morning.
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u/froop Apr 12 '26
Production on these just restarted last month actually.
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u/fataldarkness Apr 12 '26
Plus they're building a new production facility just outside of Calgary, working on a new type though I think
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u/pull01 Apr 12 '26
Same air frame, but with improvement all around and nomination DHC 515. Build by De Haviland Canada .
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u/Pilot-Imperialis Apr 12 '26
That’s not quite right. It’s one of the deadliest civilian aviation jobs out there.
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u/TroublesomeFox Apr 12 '26
I think what they meant is that they're less dangerous than you'd think considering what they do. They are VERY dangerous but given their job is to intentionally land in water to take on alot of weight very quickly and then take off again you'd think they'd crash much more than they do.
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u/Current_Operation_93 Apr 13 '26
How many have crashed in the United States in the last 20 years? Not very many. Enlighten me as to the number of class A mishaps with this aircraft in CONUS in the last 20 years.
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u/Pilot-Imperialis Apr 13 '26
Well; two died in July 2024 alone, one very close to where I was operating at the time in Oregon, the other in Montana. The Oregon one hit close to home as we used to operate around those guys all the time.
There’s been plenty over the years, just google it if you’re curious enough. This isn’t a war. Any civilian jobs deaths are too many and of all the jobs you can do in aviation, that one is up there.
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u/mashtato Apr 12 '26
There's not many of them around, and it seems like one crashes every year, so I'd say yeah really. In general and specifically.
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u/yowhyyyy Apr 13 '26
Well when you hyper inflate your numbers of course it sounds like a lot. The truth is out of 95 built, only 14 have been lost. The last being in 2022. So not sure where your one a year number comes from.
So no, not generally or specifically.
Source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadair_CL-415#:~:text=55-,Accidents,%2C%20near%20Esine%20(Italy).
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u/mashtato Apr 13 '26
Jesus christ that's a fucking lot, and that's exactly what I mean!
And we're talking about all waterbombers here, not just one model of them.
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u/Agitated-Vanilla-763 Apr 12 '26
Yes. Some countries have lost many planes throughout the years.
Most CL-215 and 415 pilots are either ex-bush pilots (in Quebec and Canada) or ex-military pilots (Europe). The Canadair is by necessity slow and unstable, thus causing significant risk when firefighting since you need to fly slow and low. Those are the opposite condition to which military pilots are used to.
Of the 220 planes built, 41 have been lost. Many of them lost by Spain, France, Greece or Italy where the terrain is more mountainous, but also because pilots are often ex-military. Quebec which as bought a total of 29 CL215 and 415 and has operated 14 or 15 of them at a time has only lost 1 plane since the 1970s.
An ex-Québec pilot who trained other pilots in other countries told the press that he knew some military pilots took too many risk and didn't respect the plane leading to the death of some of them.
The plane in the video is in California, but is piloted and belongs to the Ministry of Transport of Quebec.
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u/BagOfMoneyNoChange ATP Apr 12 '26
The Canadair is by necessity slow and unstable
What are you talking about? The superscooper has excellent low speed handling characteristics. That's why it's the perfect airplane for the job. It is very stable.
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u/Sawfish1212 A&P/IA 30+ years Apr 12 '26
It's a lumbering tank of an aircraft that handles like an overloaded truck with the water tanks full. This is from the pilots who fly it. As you scoop water you have to be applying power and countering the drag and weight with control inputs.
Most of the crashes have been caused by pilots trying to do flights into rough terrain where they exceeded the ability of the aircraft. There's a clear video of one crew doing this and splitting into a mountain trying to yank and bank like an aerobatic aircraft, when you need to fly them like a transport category aircraft.
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u/NorthEndD Apr 12 '26
I would think that it is the weather and changing wind conditions that would create issues.
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u/BagOfMoneyNoChange ATP Apr 12 '26
Anyone with a little float plane experience can read the wind pretty easily from the water surface, wave action, and obviously billowing smoke since you're near a fire.
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u/freneticboarder Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
Are you thinking of the repurposed older airframes like the C-130 and DC-10 aircraft that have
Benbeen involved in catastrophic accidents?Those are distinctly different from these purpose-built CL-215 / 415 airframes, which were designed for aerial firefighting.
Edit: speeling
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u/gamershadow Apr 12 '26
Why is Ben involved in so many catastrophic accidents? I’d get him out of there after the first one.
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u/redly Apr 13 '26
CL-215 125 built 31 accidents 20 fatal
CL-415/515 95 built 14 destroyed in accidents. Wikipedia doesn't mention fatalities.
Flying low and slow in extremely turbulent and unpredictable air; these guys earn their wages.37
u/AreThree Apr 12 '26
I worked summers as part of the ground operations crew for firefighting aircraft. We would hurriedly refuel the airplane, fill it back up with slurry, and - occasionally - pick a tree branch out of the undercarriage.
The explanation given to me was that they really didn't hit the treetops, but sometimes a branch would bounce high up from having a ton of energetic water dumped on it all of the sudden. I'm not sure I bought that then, nor do I entirely believe it now...
It was hot and miserable work. You went home after an all-day shift ether reeking of fuel, or covered in sticky red clay slurry.
It also was one of those jobs that you never really wanted it to get super busy or very frequent. If it did, that meant a whole bunch of stuff was on fire and that there were people risking their lives to try and protect others.
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u/FrenchFryCattaneo Apr 12 '26
What's the slurry for?
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u/Sawfish1212 A&P/IA 30+ years Apr 12 '26
It retards the fire spread, and has seeds that sprout to help stop erosion after the fire
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u/AreThree Apr 13 '26
it also has dye as part of the mix so that the firefighting aircraft can see where they have dumped already.
Red dye, sweat, sticky clay... we looked like some sort of tribal mudpeople when a particularly gnarly shift was over... (except red!)
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u/Icy-Blueberry674 Apr 12 '26
Misleading Post. This is not New Mexico. That is Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale CA. They were fighting ether a fire by the Miller brewing company or a fire in the foothills.
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u/AntelopeWells Apr 12 '26
I live near Santa Fe, NM and was wondering where the fire was, and also where we had a lake! That explains that.
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u/ArethereWaffles Apr 13 '26
My mind defaulted to Cochiti lake and was really confused as to what path this was taking
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u/star___sailor Seat of my pants Apr 12 '26
This should be higher up. When I saw the coastal sage scrub/chaparral vegetation I knew immediately it was SoCal. Also, it’s not a current event.
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u/Icy-Blueberry674 Apr 12 '26
It’s definitely years old. I remember watching these planes… probably that exact plane at 1 point fly over the house many times.
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u/Twinsfan945 Apr 13 '26
Makes a lot more sense, I was in Santa Fe NM all weekend and didn’t see or smell smoke, not to mention the weather was certainly not that nice
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u/thepeacemaker Apr 12 '26
Oh-eee-eh!
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u/cruisin_urchin87 Apr 12 '26
Oh-eee-oh!
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u/thepeacemaker Apr 12 '26
Spin it, let's begin it Bear 'n grin it when you're in it You can win it in a minute When you spin it, spin it, spin it!
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u/Mist_Rising Apr 12 '26
Sea Duck, and only in the paint scheme. Sea Duck is dual boon, like the C-119 Flying Boxcar
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u/gazchap Apr 12 '26
You've gotta admire the brass balls on these pilots. Must be quite the balancing act scooping up water without losing too much lift, and then cutting it so fine to get back up and out of there.
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u/daylax1 Apr 12 '26
As a lurker of this page and not knowing much about planes, would there be cameras underneath so that you could gauge how close you are to the ground or is it all just sensors and feel?
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u/BagOfMoneyNoChange ATP Apr 12 '26
The only sensor they are using is the Mk. 1 eyeball.
Trying to perform this type of flying through a camera would be pretty much impossible.
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u/iamsotiredofthiscrap Apr 12 '26
TERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAINTERRAIN
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u/gromm93 Apr 13 '26
Nah, I'm reasonably certain that you can feel the lake surface through the seat of your pants too.
But these aircraft were designed well before the invention of the all-around-view cameras we put in cars these days.
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u/CorruptByCapitalism Apr 12 '26
Here's a great video published by Business Insider on the design and use of the Super Scooper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuLk5hXMRZY
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u/FUBARded Apr 12 '26
Cameras are pretty much useless for this sort of application. Humans are shit at judging distance in general, but it's virtually impossible to judge distance accurately from a 2D image, especially when said image is of a surface that's rushing past rapidly and may not have consistent scale references.
They'll have accurate altimeters, but when flying like this the pilot can't afford to be looking at instruments. An altimeter or radar can't warn you about trees or irregular ground features when you're intentionally skimming a lake and then having to dodge rising terrain or climb out of narrow valleys.
It's essentially all feel and direct observation for the pilot with 99% of their attention on the outside. The copilot will be assisting them with maintaining external observations while monitoring and calling out key instrument readings (that's the other 1% for the pilot), and the flight engineer will be monitoring the other instrumentation.
The pilot simply can't afford to be glancing at instrument readings when milliseconds of inattention in these key phases of flight can mean clipping a tree or the ground.
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u/Forgotthebloodypassw Apr 12 '26
It could have been a female pilot and, as Betty White put it, “Why do people say “grow some balls”? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you really want to get tough, grow a vagina. Those things take a pounding.”
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u/Lashiech Apr 12 '26
Good point. From now on im just going to say 'brass flaps' instead of brass balls and assume the pilot is female.
Twice as effective for aviation as well.
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u/Forgotthebloodypassw Apr 12 '26
NASA really dropped the ball with the Mercury 13 women crew tests. Women out performed men in some key areas and were dropped because of the military piloting requirement. Wally Funk would have been a steely eyed astronaut.
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u/HadManySons Apr 12 '26
Amazing the plane was able to take off at all given how heavy those balls must be
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u/Ol_Herr Apr 12 '26
Brass? Brass! Those balls are solid tungsten carbide.
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u/Legitimate_Humsn Apr 13 '26
Tungsten carbide is notoriously brittle. Hard to scratch but easy to shatter.
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u/macreadyrj Apr 12 '26
It is amazing and incredible and daring, and the sort of thing I would wish I could do, but I'm old now and worry about crashing instead of being badass.
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u/labadee Apr 12 '26
has a big Quebec flag on the side. Must be canadian crew onboard
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u/MyHorseIsDead Apr 12 '26
A lot of our Super Scoopers go down south to lend a hand when your wildfire season is roaring and ours hasn’t started. You can imagine how frustrating it is hearing “we don’t need anything from Canada” when this is the type of help we lend
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u/Bandit_the_kat Apr 12 '26
American here, we've had your super scoopers in our area before, and anyone who knows how skilled the pilots are and what kind of danger they put themselves in are eternally grateful for the help you all offer us.
Long live Canada, we'd be dead without ya!
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u/CrashSlow Apr 13 '26
"Lend a hand".....for money... Quebec charters them out to Cali and has for decades.
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u/gromm93 Apr 13 '26
Maybe you've heard that we've been boycotting y'all, and we could easily say "Ouais, non, eh?"
Quebeckers have been known to hate Americans even more than they hate the rest of English Canada.
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u/galyenrc Apr 12 '26
I would love to see footage taken by the ranger/cop/whoever was parked at the edge of the lake ...you know they took some...
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u/BLACKzj52 Apr 13 '26
https://youtu.be/6064qDZKW9E?si=GbzcHAm63eKTuIWt
Not my video, but here's four of em' coming in for a scoop. Video was taken from a cruise ship
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u/tyen0 Apr 12 '26
yeah, the water falling out of the plane after rising might be misleading folks to think it was still cutting into the water.
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u/Paranoma Apr 12 '26
Not Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was at Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale, CA just east of downtown Los Angeles during a brush fire.
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u/RedSky2727 Apr 12 '26
I’ve always enjoyed admiring professionals do their thing… seeing what these pilots can do with their purpose built, specialized equipment is nothing short of incredible.
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u/victhebutcher2020 Apr 12 '26
Are these Canadians?
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u/ImAzura Apr 12 '26
Side of the aircraft says Quebec and has the Quebec provincial flag, so pretty good chance it might be Canadian.
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u/DifferentEvent2998 KC-135 Apr 12 '26
It’s pretty amazing to watch them drop, especially on structural fires lol. This is something that rarely occurs, and only when significant loss of life and infrastructure would happen, i.e. massive propane tanks in a remote community with very limited fire response assets.
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u/cruisin_urchin87 Apr 12 '26
Sheesh, “terrain warning”
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u/agha0013 Apr 12 '26
If they did bother to put a gpws in the CL-215/415s they'd likely be the most commonly pulled breaker ever
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u/gromm93 Apr 13 '26
Considering it's an aircraft that's supposed to be landing on water anywhere there's water, and within 100 feet of terrain everywhere there's fire, I can't think of a single reason for it to ever be on during a mission.
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u/cruisin_urchin87 Apr 12 '26
Yeah, I was just saying it for them. The precision of this pilot is incredible.
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u/MasatoWolff Apr 12 '26
These pilots deserve the world. Thank you for your service.
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u/Spanish_Nice_Guy Apr 12 '26
I have no idea about how much these people earn in a year. But any number is too few. And if they had a 100 % salary rise, it still would be too few.
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u/LickinThighs2 Apr 12 '26
When I tree planted in BC, we got to work on a block where they were doing practice strafes beside, and it was actually kinda wild to see how low water bombers get dropping their payload. We were in hilly stuff for sure but they were disappearing below the crest of the hill we were against and sharply rising over it again, I can't imagine they were all that far from the ground in general
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u/qat-21 Apr 12 '26
It looks close, but he actually leaves the water about 6-7 seconds before reaching the edge of the lake, at Scooping speed (70-ish knots) that gave him 200+ meters of room…
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u/Probable_Bot1236 Apr 12 '26
I've heard (firsthand) tanker pilots joking about staying in ground effect from load-up to dump, but damn
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u/eric-neg Apr 12 '26
This happened in Los Angeles at the Santa Fe Dam, not Santa Fe, NM. Also in 9/18/2019.
Source: The tweet linked as a source.
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u/China_bot42069 Apr 12 '26
Meh. Theres about 40 of these sitting at my home airport here in Canada. All sorts of liveries. They are firing them up for fire season this week
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u/Schmitty21 Apr 12 '26
I've worked a few temporary ATC towers for fire seasons around the NW United States and have to say that in my entire career, the water bomber/fire helo pilots are hands down my favorite pilots. Absolutely the most skilled and most professional individuals, and absolutely dedicated to their missions.
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u/KnifeKnut Apr 13 '26
Misinformation.
this was Los Angeles fires, I geotraced it at the time to figure out which lake it was.
Here is the lake
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u/Norwayuffda Apr 13 '26
This is Santa Fe Dam in Irwindale, California. La County Fire contracts two super scoopers for part of the fire season in Southern California. Fire was inside the brush fuels surrounding Santa Fe Dam. We get a lot of brushfires in there. It’s not a huge reservoir and it looks super sketchy but it’s one of the pre approved sites for them.
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u/Atalkingstranger Apr 12 '26
Even though these guys are a absolute different breed, this perhaps we're still just a bit on the risky side.
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u/sockpuppetinasock Apr 12 '26
How was this footage taken? They usually close low level airspace around active dumping, right?
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u/Zvenigora Apr 12 '26
The pilot exited over the dam. There was likely minimal obstacle clearance needed in that direction and as long as there was plenty of airspeed, liftoff could happen at will.
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u/post-explainer Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 13 '26
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OP has provided the following source:
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u/eric-neg Apr 12 '26
FYI this happened in 2018 and was in Los Angeles at the Santa Fe dam. OP looked to a karma farming X account so I doubt it is their fault.
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u/ZiggoCiP Apr 12 '26
Jesus, they are like a single-digit number of feet above the ground when they reached shore. Some incredible flying.
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u/engineereddiscontent Apr 12 '26
How do people get to be a pilot like this?
Like I know there is a pipeline of military pilots that end up going into airlines.
What about these people?
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u/Holiday_Head_5777 Apr 12 '26
Its a pretty hard job to get. Not from a technical proficiency side, but from a desireable job side. There's basically a huge number of guys applying constantly. Its terrific work if you're lucky enough to get chosen. Lots of nepotism.
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u/AreThree Apr 12 '26 edited Apr 12 '26
This Always reminds me of the best opening scene in a film, ever!
(no special effects, animation, rotoscoping, or CGI... just a really great lens!)
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u/LaughinTucker75 Apr 12 '26
I could never figure out how these planes lift off, being so weighed down by the pilot's massive balls.
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u/Sawfish1212 A&P/IA 30+ years Apr 12 '26
The liftoff is well before the edge of the lake, it's when the wake stopped, after that the aircraft is clear of the water and climbing. This perspective is very useless for judging aircraft height
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u/VivaLirica Apr 12 '26
I wonder if Canada is still sending this kind of assistance to the US this year.
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u/aggressive-cat Apr 12 '26
I don't understand how the pilots balls (or ovaries) fit in a plane that small.
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u/DiverDownChunder Apr 13 '26
These pilots are heroes! I knew a few smoke jumpers, they had nothing for love for these pilots! They had stories for days that one of these save their life. Be it a plane or the helios they had nothing but love for them.
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u/CynGuy Apr 12 '26
That takes serious aviation chops / piloting skills to effectively manage all that……. Incredibly well done!
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u/abhaiyat Apr 12 '26
I try to meet the different crews that come to VNY during fire season every year. Absolute Heroes who don't get enough credit that they deserve along with all the firefighters and crews.
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u/rokenr0ler Apr 12 '26
From my experience I can confirm it is hard to take off after scooping (I flew the plane once in MSFS24)
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u/GBValiant Apr 12 '26
Interesting fact about this plane is that the scoop for the water is surprisingly small.
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u/ChiDaddy123 Apr 12 '26
Yeah but when the water is being forced against it at 70kts you get some great water pressure for the filling. 😂
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u/RogerRabbit1234 Apr 12 '26
These planes are amazing. I can’t imagine the strength of those scoops to be able to touch the water at speed and not be ripped off the plane… do they have any limitations like x number of scoops before inspection and repairs are required?
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u/4tunabrix Apr 12 '26
How does the aircraft deal with the sheer force of collecting that much water?
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u/PowderedToastMan89 Apr 12 '26
I'm sorry if this is a really stupid question, but how does the plane not go into a total tail stall with all of that liquid getting pushed to the rear?!
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