At a press conference held in front of Cascade Aerospace’s hangar at Abbotsford airport in British Columbia on August 7, Stephen Fuhr, Secretary of State for Defence Procurement, announced that 10 surplus RCAF CC-130H Hercules aircraft would be sold to Coulson Aviation Canada for conversion to air tankers for wildfire service.
Port Alberni, B.C.-based Coulson has already converted and operates a fleet of 10 Hercules airtankers, generally in service abroad.
Fuhr pointed out that there was considerable service life left on the airframes and that several criteria had to be met before selecting a buyer, including proposed end use, alignment with the public interest, logistics, custodial cost efficiencies, compliance with applicable regulations and best overall value to Canada.
“That rigorous evaluation process led to the selection of Coulson Aviation,” said Fuhr. Although he said that “there was significant interest in acquiring them,” he did not mention who the other interested parties were.
Conversion work will be accomplished at Coulson’s facility at Port Alberni on Vancouver Island, where the principal conversion work for Coulson’s existing fleet of Hercules and Boeing 737 tankers is currently done.
Fuhr added that some of the conversion work may be performed by Kelowna’s KF Aerospace and Cascade Aerospace, although specific tasks were not mentioned.
“Firefighters on the ground need aircraft overhead that can get there quickly, carry a meaningful load and keep working,” said Coulson CEO Wayne Coulson. “These aircraft will multiply the current initial attack capacity operating in Canada today.”
When asked about the value of the sales contract, both Secretary of State Fuhr and Wayne Coulson declined to comment.
Coulson expects at least two newly converted Hercules air tankers to be operational by the end of 2027.
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