Aussie Fire Bombers go to Greece

Warbirds Online doesn’t usually cover stories on non-military aircraft however in this case we make an exception.  The team at Pay’s Air Service in Scone NSW has taken the giant step of taking on a contract to provide Fire Bomber services in Greece over the next season. The fires are already wreaking havoc after last year’s devastating fire season and the Greek government are seeking to become even better prepared.

A total of 6 Aircraft (4 X AT-802F FIRE BOSS and 2 X AT-802 Air Tractors) have flown to Greece in two waves. The aircraft were flown from Scone on the 27th of May and the 28th May by Pilots David Rix, Rowan Lloyd, Mark Bagshaw, Noel Casey, Stephen Death and Richard McDonald.

The flight from Australia to Athens was scheduled via Alice Springs – Port Headland – Christmas Island – Cocos Island Sri Lanka – Maldives – Muscat – Egypt and finally to Athens. However, bad headwinds and weather forced some rerouting along the way to Jakarta, Indonesia for a total of 8 days flying at an average speed of around 130 knots.

This flight was an epic feat of endurance make no mistake, the effort to fly a single engine aircraft half way around the world is no mean achievement, only dulled slightly by the close proximity to two fellow pilots in the other aircraft.

All the aircraft have now arrived in Athens and are awaiting deployment alongside the rest of the Firebomber fleet in Greece. In Australia it may difficult to imagine that Greece has a bad fire season. We tend to think of the country as fairly arid with sparse vegetation but this couldn’t be further from the reality. Greece has horrific forest fires which cause huge damage and sadly many casualties each year. Last year’s fires were amongst the worst on record and this year is forecast to be even worse so it is anticipated that the Australians will be very busy over the season.

The team at Pays has put many months and considerable resources into bringing this mammoth project to fruition. From the first submission to fulfil the task in Greece through the vast planning and logistical exercise to relocate the team to Greece there have been many hurdles to overcome including the host of permits required, Staff planning, packing of spares and equipment and relocating the support crew of 6 Engineers.

In addition, all the aircraft participating in the trip required considerable in depth maintenance even above that normally required by the Australian “off” season and it was also compressed into a much tighter time scale. There were many late nights spent overhauling the fleet for the trip, alongside the regular work required on the other aircraft in the Pays fleet so no time to rest on their laurels.

The 6 member support team leave for Greece on 10th June2021 via commercial flights and meet up with the pilots and aircraft in Athens a couple of days later and begin the task of Firefighting with an expected duration of around 4 months. This trip will no doubt be a great adventure for all concerned and provide invaluable experience to all of the team but it will also be very intense and exhausting. We wish all concerned a safe and rewarding time and Greece and a safe return to Australia.

Warbirds Online wishes to thanks all the team at Pay’s Air Service for their help in preparing this news article as well as Stephen Death and Kate Pay for photos of the journey.

© John Parker 2021