Fire Centres place requests for airtankers with the Airtanker Centre. The alert system is designed to reflect the state of readiness of aircraft and flight crews. Daily airtanker alert status are established in accordance with current fire danger, projected fire load, aircraft serviceability, flying weather, and conditions of flight crews. All flight personnel are on base and aircraft are available for immediate departure. Aircraft are available for departure within one-half hour.
Aircraft are available for departure within a specified time, greater than one-half hour.
Flight personnel have been released from all standby obligations for a specified period of time. Repositioning is the urgent or immediate relocation of an airtanker group or single aircraft to meet specific demands, or a planned relocation for periods not expected to exceed three to four days. Airtanker flight time is defined as the time from the commencement of wheel roll from the loading pits after warm-up to the time of wheel stop back in the loading pits. Helitankers There are two types of helitankers, Bell 205A-17 and Bell 212 . The increased horsepower of the 205-17 engine vastly improves the 205's performance in high temperatures and under high elevation fire conditions.