How Do Canadair Maintain Their Flight Level While Loading 6 Tonns Of Water?
I have recently seen these fire fighting aircrafts over our forests in the Algarve, scooping the water from the reservoir at 70-80 kts, loading 6000 litres of water in 10 seconds flat.
Being a pilot myself, I wonder…
With the “scoop” being at the gravity center of the aircraft, HOW does the pilot maintain LEVEL flight???
Surely, a sudden “break” (hitting water at 70 kts is a serious breaking!), compounded with a very rapid increase of load (6 tonnes!), MUST create a sharp and pretty hard “nose down”!
How can the pilot control its attitude and altitude?
Or do they have an “autopilot” to control that?
(Something like an APC on fighter aircrafts - Auto-Pitch-Control) ?
x
