The safety questions have been answered and the federal contract for seven of the Missoula-based aviation service's P2V airtankers has been approved, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey said Thursday.
Two airtankers owned by Minden Air Corp., based in Minden, Nev., also got the OK.
Eight additional slurry bombers are available from the military.
The tankers are an important and relatively inexpensive piece in the national fight against wildfires. Able to quickly drop retardant in remote areas, the bombers are particularly good at attacking small blazes before they grow.
"These aviation assets are critical ... . We welcome them back," Rey said.
Last May, citing concerns for public safety and airworthiness, the Forest Service abruptly canceled its contract for eight Neptune airtankers and 25 others around the West.
The decision came after a National Transportation Safety Administration investigation into deadly crashes of three slurry bombers in previous fire seasons. None of those planes were owned by Neptune.
Bereft of its income, Neptune persevered, keeping 50 employees on staff, including highly skilled and certified airplane mechanics. Only the pilots for the grounded aircraft were laid off. The company laid itself bare to the agency and others in order to give anything and everything to prove its planes safe, officials said.
At the time of the cancellation and later, Forest Service officials said Neptune and other P2V operators lacked data on the operational service life of the aircraft, one of the criteria needed to help prove the airtankers airworthy.
To get that information, the Forest Service used a wide variety of existing data, including test results from Japan in the 1960s, and contracted with several companies to research and test the P2Vs, a former Navy submarine warfare plane that was in production from the late 1940s to the early 1960s.
Last August, the agency gave the go-ahead to one of Neptune's tankers to take part in a test program. That plane carried equipment that monitored aircraft structure and stress in the firefighting environment.
The research continued this spring, when Avenger Aircraft Services LLC of Greenville, N.C., a small firm of former Lockheed engineers, further tested the planes and finally established their service life.
The service life is 15,000 hours, Rey said.
"After that, there is an increased likelihood of catastrophic metal failure," he said.
Neptune's aircraft are all well under the 15,000-hour mark, said Chris Holm, director of aviation safety for Neptune. If use continues at a rate similar to past years, the airtankers would be good for 15 more years.
The value of the aerial firefighting contracts is difficult to determine because it depends on how much time the tankers spend in service.
The contract includes a fee for daily availability - about $9,000 each - for Neptune's aircraft and an hourly flight rate of about $5,300. Other factors also affect the cost.
In 2003, the budget for 33 airtankers for a season was about $20 million, Forest Service officials have said.
Neptune and the Forest Service are negotiating a settlement to compensate the company for revenues from the canceled contract, Rey said. No word yet on the timing or amount of the settlement.
Montana's congressional delegation worked hard to get Neptune's airtankers approved for service. Describing Neptune's safety record as "impeccable," Sen. Max Baucus added: "I am so pleased. I've never had so many meetings or made so many phone calls in my life."
Rep. Denny Rehberg said: "Those planes have been grounded for too long, caught in the Catch-22 of federal agency infighting, so I'm certainly glad this waiting period may finally be over."
Perhaps no one was happier than those at Neptune.
"We're tickled. We're so, so happy," said Neptune president Kristen Schloemer. "Our Montana delegation is awesome. They moved mountains for us."
"We're overjoyed. We're so elated," Holm said.
There is one last hurdle for Neptune and Minden to jump over. Avenger engineers still need to test a few structural elements in the planes.
"We're in the process right now," Holm said.
But that process is a crystal-clear dream compared to the past 12 murky months. If any part on any airtanker proves unworthy, it will simply be replaced - and then the plane will get its final approval.
If Schloemer or anyone else at Neptune has anything to do with it, the experience of the past year will never be repeated. "We're going to keep the lines of communication open (with the Forest Service)," she said.
Reporter Robert Struckman can be reached at 523-5262 or rstruckman@missoulian.com
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