Water bomber

This US Navy PBY-6A Catalina has been converted into a fire-fighting aircraft.

A water bomber is an aircraft used in fighting fire, which drops water, or a mixture of water and special fire-fighting additives.

In the USA water bombers are sometimes called "air tankers".

The first aircraft used as water bombers were retrofits. After World War 2 PBY flying boats were converted to water bombers.

a Canadair 215 can fill her tanks with 6000 gallons of water in 9 seconds, through skimming the surface of a body of water after lowering a special probe.

Amphibious aircraft, which can lower a probe and refill their tanks from a nearby lake or reservoir, were the aircraft seen as the best to convert to fight fires.

Canadair was the first company to develop an aircraft designed to be a water bomber - the Canadair 215. This aircraft was introduced in 1969. 125 airframes were sold. 95 more modern Canadair 415s were sold. Viking Air, the firm that bought the intellectual property rights to the designs, in 2018, announced an update, the CL-515.

Russian aircraft firm Beriev introduced a multipurpose amphibious aircraft, the Beriev 500, in 2004, and has sold 20 to serve as firefighting aircraft.