"TANKER 83" with Hemet Valley Flying Service off of runway 23 on a fire dispatch

143 TAS/143 TAG aircraft taken at unknown location and at unknown date.

Delaware ANG

K25 slide scan. Built 1957 as 56-511 for USAF, still active with MT ANG 1987. Hawkins and Powers 1990, stored Greybull. HV Flying Service N132FF Tanker 83 1992. Aero Firefighting 1997, stored Chandler 2004. International Air Response N121TG 2007. Had been deployed to Cardiff-Wales in 2014.

USAF 56-0511. Acquired by Hawkins and Powers Aviation from USAF surplus stocks in 1990 for conversion to a fire bomber. Initially stored at Greybull in the full camouflage markings of the Montana Air Guard with whom it had served latterly, at Great Falls, Montana. No civil marking was applied. Converted and sold to Hemet Valley Flying Service, Hemet, CA, in 1992, where it went into service registered N132FF, tanker"83".

Ex Montana ANG aircraft purchased by Hawkins and Powers.

Aircraft was being painted in current IAR colors the day of my visit and will be put back into service. It had been stored at Chandler Memorial in green military colors for a number of years and was recently flown to Coolidge.

T&G has become International Air Response and C-130As are replacing the DC-7s.

At the time 57 years old, this Hercules served the USAF from 1957 as 56-0511 and was converted to an airtanker in 1990. Operated by International Air Response out of Singapore until she was positioned to Cardiff on 8 Sep 2014, for a UK commitment till July 2015