As with every nation, there’s a lot you can look at in Russia and frown or shake your head at. The excess booze on the roads. The invasions and annexations of bits of sovereign neighbors. The continued political dominance of Pooty and continued reverence for the Commie era. But one thing you gotta give the Russian props for is the Beriev Be-200. That is an aircraft of a type the US has not built since the 1950s… a flying boat with jet engines. Hell, I don’t think the US has built a flying boat *at* *all* since the 50’s, apart from itty bitty light planes.

The Be-200 is a *beast* when it comes to doing it’s job. And one of it’s jobs is fighting fires. A jet plane  goes fast; a  flying boat can land on a lake and scoop up water fast. Put the two together and you really have something.

Official: Russia offers to help fight wildfires by stationing aircraft in Santa Maria

This sort of thing would be *fantastic* on many levels, from the purely practical to the diplomatic. And California? Imagine what that state could do if they stopped throwing money at hare-brained schemes for high speed rail lines and instead spend their billions on procuring planes like this. Hell, for the amount California has blown on phantom bullet trains from LA to SF or LV, they could fund the development of an all-American flying boat of this kind, capable not only of water bombing but, say, flying passengers from LA to SF.

Along with new firefighting aircraft, California would be well advised to start planning for a more burny future as the climate changes. This means not only a drier climate meaning more fires, but also less water coming in from the Sierras and the Colorado River. Fortunately, California has a backup source of water: the Pacific Friggen’ Ocean. With a few terawatts of new powerplants – preferably in the form of thorium reactors, but latest-gen uranium reactors are good too – connected to new desalination plants, California could easily supply itself with all the water it needs for its people and agriculture. By doing so it would reduce the need to tap resources like the Colorado, allowing that water to be used for better things elsewhere.

California could demonstrate its forward-thinkingness by creating such a power and desalination surplus that it could actually pump billions of gallons of water annually up into the hills and mountains, creating reservoirs for use in fighting fires.

Interesting to note: the official Be-200 promotional vids I found on YouTube all look and sound like the sort of promotional videos I saw American aerospace firms crank out in the 80’s. The video quality is undoubtedly better, but otherwise… man, 80’s flashback.