The 43rd Air Force Group is one of the most popular units of the Spanish Air Force, due to the nature of its missions.
This Saturday, the excellent Youtube channel Fly By Wire Aviation (which I highly recommend you subscribe to if you like the world of aviation) has published a fabulous report in which it shows these planes in detail inside and out, explaining their characteristics, how they operate in the water (since they are planes with amphibious capability) and how their missions are carried out, and also showing a CL-415 simulator that this unit has (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):
As the video points out, the 43 Group has about 50 pilots and 148 mechanics and other ground personnel, and has 14 amphibious aircraft (4 CL-415 and 10 CL-215T) whose main mission is firefighting, with search and rescue as a secondary mission. The first two CL-215s (then with piston engines) arrived in Spain on February 8, 1971, being then part of the 803 Squadron. As a curious fact, its first two missions were made in Galicia: the first SAR mission was on March 11, 1971 in Finisterre, and the first firefighting flight was made in La Coruña on July 9 of that year.
The 43 Group is based in Torrejón de Ardoz (Madrid), where it has two aircraft always on alert (that is, ready to return to any point in Spain in case their intervention is required), but during each firefighting campaign (between June and November) it deploys detachments in several locations: the Lavacolla Military Aerodrome (Santiago de Compostela), the Zaragoza Air Base, the Pollensa Military Aerodrome (Mallorca), the Los Llanos Air Base (Albacete), the Málaga Air Base, the Talavera la Real Air Base (Badajoz) and the Matacán Air Base (Salamanca).
Spain operated a total of 30 Canadair CL-215s, 15 of which were re-engined with Pratt & Whitney-123 AF turboprop engines in 1989, becoming the CL-215T variant. On 28 July 2006, the first Bombardier CL-415 arrived, which has a greater water carrying capacity, a digitalised cockpit and four hatches for releasing water instead of four, among other improvements. In April of last year, Spain acquired seven De Havilland Canada DHC-515 Firefighters, an improved version of the CL-415, to modernize its fleet of firefighting aircraft.
The firefighting missions of these aviators are risky. Proof of this is that in all these years of service to Spain, the 43 Group has suffered eight accidents in which it has lost eight aircraft (7 CL-215 and one CL-215T). Five of the accidents were fatal, and 15 crew members died in them. My special memory, full of gratitude, goes to them and their families.
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Main image: Fly By Wire Aviation.
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