MAD MAX HAS ARRIVED

While it may share a name with the yesteryear cult movie of the same name, this Mad Max is a huge waterbombing helicopter that was deployed to Australia to help fight the devastating bushfires that have engulfed the country since September 2019.

"Mad Max", a Mil Mi-8 MTV helicopter, can carry up to five tonnes of water at a time, twice as much as any other aerial fire-fighting helicopter outside the military. Private owners Aeropower and Hevilift sent Max to Brisbane, ready to travel south to help extinguish blazes burning up and down the east coast.

"This is one of the largest waterbombing helicopters in the world," Darren Carlile from Aeropower told Australia’s 9News. "As it stands right now the aircraft is operationally ready to be deployed wherever it's required in Australia," Mr Carlile said after its arrival.

Max had been operating in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and “remain in Australia as long as the government requires it but once it's off-task it'll probably head back to Papau New Guinea," James Bond from Hevilift told 9News.

It has the capacity to drop 5 000 litres of water in a matter of seconds. The crew had also offered to retrieve another helicopter that crashed into a dam fighting fires near Eden, New South Wales at no expense to Australia. Max is second in capacity on to another celebrity names helicopter – Elvis, an Sikorsky S-64F AirCrane – which can hold 9 500 litres of water or foam mix. It has been brought out by the Victorian Government from the United States for each fire season since 2001-2002.

Too little too late!

Funding to the relevant department involved in fire fighting has been cut over recent years and a request for additional funds made in 2017 has still not received any answer from the government although $11m was provided by the federal government to boost aerial fire fighting earlier this year, this was described by NSW fire and rescue commissioner Greg Mullins, as “smoke and mirrors” and “too little too late”.