A British Columbia firm is modifying two Bombardier [BBD] Q400 turboprops to serve as aerial firefighting tankers for the French government.

The contract represents a number of firsts for the Canadian-built aircraft. It will be the first aircraft in the world to be certified by three governments to carry passengers, cargo and serve as a tanker. It is the first time any of the Q line has been modified as a tanker. It is the first time a Q400 had been configured as a cargo plane.

Over the next 14 months, a Q400 will be modified so that an external tank capable of carrying 2,640 gallons of fire retardant can be fitted around the fuselage, said Mark Dodd, the general manager of production and engineering at Cascade Aerospace. The firm, based in Abbotsford, British Columbia, specializes in aerial fire control equipment.

To meet the terms of the French contract, the plane must be able to be converted into either the tanker, a cargo plane or a passenger shuttle within three hours. The plane's cargo mode will be able to transport 19,458 pounds. The plane can carry about 70 passengers.

The multi-use concept was developed by Bombardier and Cascade to meet the terms of the French bid, Dodd said.

Aviation safety rules prevent the modified Q400 from carrying either passengers or cargo while also carrying the fire retardant tanks. The designs and plane will be submitted to Transport Canada, the Federal Aviation Administration and the European Union's Joint Aviation Administration for airworthiness certification.

The first plane should be delivered next June and the second next October.

Bombardier is providing the two planes, which have less than 1,800 hours of flight time. The two planes were formerly leased to SAS, said Jonathan Cree, a spokesman for Bombardier. The Scandinavian carrier returned four Q400s that had been on long-term leases when air traffic dropped off, he said.

"The customer wants a multi-role platform for the various duties it may become engaged in." Dodd said. "It is all about utility and versatility. It is a fairly valuable resource to simply dedicate for a few hundred hours a year for firefighting work."

Dodd said the Q400 was selected as the foundation for the tanker because "it has tremendous performance capabilities, including the ability to fly on a single engine." In addition, pilots can train on state-of-art simulators so they can learn to handle a variety of firefighting conditions.

When the project is completed, it will be the safest tanker since it will continue to meet the highest transport standards for a passenger craft. Most aerial firefighting tankers are old military or civilian aircraft that have exhausted their economic life, Dodd noted.

Cascade sees a new niche for the Q400 beyond fulfilling the French contract. Since the bulk of the aerial tanker fleets used by the U.S. Forest Service have been grounded because the old planes are no longer safe to fly, Dodd said the Q400 could fill the role if the U.S. government starts buying new planes. "This plane has us thinking it maybe a new solution to their problem. Versatility helps sell what could be an expensive aircraft. This is something quite different from the current fleet."

The 2,640-gallon payload is just shy of the 3,000-gallon payload for DC-6 and DC-7 tankers. These older planes are considered heavy tankers since they carry the largest payloads of fire retardant.

Cree said that marketing the Q400 as a cargo carrier "was a long, long, long way down the road. From a manufacturer's view, if we convert the plane to a cargo carrier it shows that the end of the product's life is near. We are nowhere near the end of the line."

Bombardier's early Q models do have quick-change kits available to permit the easy conversion of a plane into a combination passenger and cargo aircraft. The earlier models, Cree said, have been adapted to special missions including maritime patrol, surveying and mapping and missile range command centers. ?