Almost every aerial firefighting aircraft in the world is a conversion — an airliner, a military transport or a crop duster fitted with tanks. The Canadair CL-215 and its successor the CL-415 are the exception. They were designed from a blank sheet to do one job, and nothing else does it the same way.
The scooping principle
A converted airliner drops its load, flies to an airport, lands, gets refilled from a tanker truck, takes off and flies back. The cycle takes a long time, and it needs a runway with a retardant base nearby.
A CL-415 descends onto a lake, plants its hull in the water and skims. In about twelve seconds it takes on roughly 6,000 litres through two probes under the hull, then lifts off again without ever stopping.
If there is a suitable lake near the fire, the turnaround is minutes rather than an hour. Over a long day the aircraft can deliver many times its own capacity, and Canada — with more lake surface than any other country on Earth — is where that advantage is largest.
The two generations
CL-215 (first flight 1967). Piston-engined, powered by the same Pratt & Whitney R-2800 radials used on wartime transports. Rugged, loud, and effective. Built by Canadair at Montreal.
CL-415 (first flight 1993). The turboprop development, with Pratt & Whitney Canada PW123 engines, higher performance, better handling and a modern flight deck. Many CL-215s were converted to turbine power as CL-215Ts.
Production ended in the 2010s, and the type certificate has since moved to De Havilland Canada, which has been working towards a new production version — the DHC-515 — with European and Canadian orders placed against increasing wildfire demand.
Where they fly
Quebec's SOPFEU operates a substantial fleet, as do Ontario, Newfoundland and Labrador, Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. Outside Canada the main operators are Mediterranean: France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia and Turkey all fly them, because the Mediterranean summer fire season and the availability of sea and lake water suit the aircraft exactly.
The yellow and red Canadair scooping off the Côte d'Azur every August is a Quebec-built aircraft.
Why it is a hard aircraft to build
The flying boat hull has to withstand repeated high-speed water impacts, structurally, for decades. The airframe operates at low altitude in turbulent air over terrain, heavily loaded, hundreds of times a season. It is a punishing duty cycle, and it is why the aircraft is heavily built and why conversions do not do the same job.
As wildfire seasons lengthen in Canada, southern Europe and elsewhere, demand has risen faster than the small remaining fleet can meet — which is the argument behind restarting production of a design that first flew in 1967.