Chico >> It’s been hard to miss the T-170 jet that has roared over Chico the past couple of weeks.
The roar is enough to draw attention to the skies over the Chico Municipal Airport and north Chico, where Air Spray is converting the jet to a firefighting air tanker.
Seats that carried airline passengers on the jet have been removed and replaced with a retardant-delivery system.
In addition to the unmistakable road, its other draw is its colors — from a tail section vinyl wrap of a bright green forest scene to a splash of yellow embracing the Air Spray name and logo on the front half.
Households throughout the city have seen the tanker take off and land repeatedly in Chico, but last week it took its duties south with a water drop during the Aerial Firefighting North America 2018 conference at McClellan airfield in Sacramento.
With a 3,000-gallon tank capacity, the tanker is expected to be a formidable soldier in firefighting.
The aircraft is still short of its full government approval for working, but it’s getting close, according to Air Spray USA General Manager Ravi Saip of Chico.
Chico has a history of air tankers and firefighting with the anchoring of the airport by Aero Union, a privately held company that converted military aircraft into air tankers. That business moved out of Chico after a change in leadership, and later filed bankruptcy. Some of its tankers are still situated at the Chico airport, waiting for a buyer.
Former employee Saip and his team brought the Aero Union knowledge to Air Spray, an aerial tanker company based in Edmonton, Alberta, and then back to Chico.
Saip said more ground-based water testing is on tap for the T-170, including drops on the field in Chico.
“Once the retardant tank/computer system is releasing water volumes/flow rates on target with U.S. Forest Service contract specs, we will go to ‘The Grid’ at Fox Field outside of Lancaster for actual pattern testing with the real stuff, red retardant,” Saip wrote in an email.
Saip expects that to happen in late April or so.
The Forest Service-supervised grid pattern tests will qualify the tank system for use on federal and state wildland fires, Saip said.
“The final hurdle will still be Federal Aviation Administration approval of the entire engineering/build package for the plane. That is expected by June,” Saip wrote.
Saip and Air Spray Canada Vice President Paul Lane were at the Sacramento conference, in addition to other Air Spray aircraft, including two Fire Bosses that took to the air, an Electra from Edmonton, and a Cessna 185 that is on floats and represents the ultimate Alaska bush plane, Saip said.
Local residents got up-close and personal with the T-170 tanker last October during a program sponsored by the Chico Air Museum at the airport.
Starting out as a British BAe-146, the jet airliner bounded across the world, including stationing in Wisconsin and Burbank before its last incarnation as a Star Peru passenger carrier.
Air Spray opened at the Chico airport in 2013 and has more than 40 employees.
Contact reporter Laura Urseny at 896-7756.
