A US Navy R4Y-2 to be 145966 but was one of six Samaritans that were cancelled before delivery. The aircraft went to General Motors November 1959 (N5124) and GM converted it to a CV-580 in 1960. Coming to Canada in 1996 and flying with Cypress Airlines (C-GTTE) before heading off to New Zealand (ZK-KSA) in 1997 and Australia (VH-PDV) in 2006. Conair bought the Convairliner and it returned to Canada in September 2009 to join their fire fighting fleet.

Conair's Tanker 44 was originally delivered as a Convair 340 to United Air Lines in 1954 as N73153. It would keep that registration with various operators for more than 40 years, until it was purchased by Kelowna Flightcraft in 1999 for conversion to airtanker, and registered C-GEVC, then C-FFKF. It came to Alaska today to battle the Parks Highway Fire and is seen here in the evening light, arriving at Fairbanks to satisfy the customs people.

Tankers 44 and 49 were dispatched from Canada and based at Fairbanks-Ft. Wainwright to combat the Parks Highway Fire burning near Nenana, AK, which was getting out of control. Both tankers made a short stop at Fairbanks-International to settle customs affairs before going on to their temporary tanker base at Ft. Wainwright.