In what was fast becoming a grim rite of summer, wildfires sprang up at hot spots nationwide, and some of the government’s over-the-hill air tankers went down fighting them. Nearly two weeks after the latest fatal crash of an old air tanker in Utah, the U.S. Forest Service announced Wednesday that four contracts have been awarded to aviation companies to upgrade its fleet of large firefighting airplanes, many of which date back to the Eisenhower administration. Read full article >>