"BIG JUICY"

R.K. Smithley battles the Los Angeles Wildfires in a DC-10 fire bomber

- BY JAN TEGLER

“When you're in a holding pattern flying over a thousand houses that are now just foundations, it kind of slaps you in the mouth,” Capt. R.K. Smithley says, describing his emotions and the view from the cockpit of the DC-10-30 as he was flying for 10 Tanker Air Carrier just above the fires that devastated Los Angeles in January.

“But when it's your turn to go in and drop, it's all business for the three of us flight crew,” Smithley adds. “We're putting retardant right where they want it to try to save a hundred or a thousand houses. And you're down low in Mandeville Canyon with big high-tension power lines off the right wing and terrain off to the left, so all three of us crew are focused. And oh by the way, there are 10 helicopters right past a ridge in front of us.”

Albuquerque, New Mexico-based 10 Tanker's four DC-10s are the world's largest fire bombers. Converted to carry 84,600 pounds/9,400 gallons of bright red fire retardant known as “Phos-Check” instead of passengers, the aircraft carry the load in three adjacent external belly tanks that can be loaded simultaneously on the ground and drop all or portions of their load via a variable drop rate system.

Known as “Big Juicy” in the airborne firefighting industry and frequently using the “Big Juicy” call-sign, the tankers and their crews dropped more than 7.1 million gallons of fire retardant across the globe in 2024 and flew upwards of 767 firefighting sorties. Seven captains and 25 flight crew members make up the company's three-person flight crews, including co-pilots and flight engineers that operate its Douglas-designed DC-10s.