The deadly LA wildfires that leveled whole neighborhoods are mostly under control, which means the surviving victims are now just starting to piece together their lives. There are myriad ways to support Angelinos, and one of the most stylish ways is to order this Blipshift shirt depicting one of the CL-415 Super Scooper in action over Los Angeles County.
Proceeds from the shirt will go to benefit the California Fire Foundation which, in addition to its normal support of firefighters and communities, has been handing out cash aid to victims of the Palisades, Eaton, and other fires. You can get more info here if you’re one of the individuals impacted by the fires.
The idea for the shirt came from our colleague, LA resident and auto journalist/host Jonny Lieberman, who explained the genesis of the idea on Instagram:
View this post on Instagram
The DeHaviland-built planes are incredible, capable of scooping up 1,600 gallons of water from lakes or oceans and getting right back into the fight. Most traditional fixed-wing aircraft have to return to an airport to get refilled.
These specific CL-415 Super Scoopers are actually leased from Canada’s SOPFEU non-profit. This makes a lot of sense as the Eastern Canadian wildfire seasons and the California wildfire seasons generally occur at opposite times. This was also the aircraft that was temporarily grounded by a drone strike.
Here’s a video of it in action:
Support the people of California. Get a cool T-shirt (or hoodie, or poster). Everyone wins.
Images: Blipshift
Too bad the last Martin Mars waterbomber up on Vancouver Island was recently retired. It would have been epic to see those monsters over LA.
NGL The TaleSpin theme started playing in my head when I saw the plane.
Oh-ee-ay! Oh-ee-oh!
How does somebody who obviously must have humongous balls of steel even fly that thing?
Nice to see that someone in the US is grateful for Canada (and our waterbombers)
As someone who grew up near the border, we always appreciate our mellow neighbor to the north. You’re the Ned Flanders to our Homer, and we love you for it. A few loud-mouthed fools won’t change that.
DO NOT SUPPORT BLIPSHIFT.
I submitted a catchy design to them, ready for production (was even in vector format).
They took my design/idea, and had an in-house artist redo it so they didn’t have to pay out. The design wound up being so popular they’ve done multiple runs on it, selling out every time. They did this so they didn’t have to give me a cut of the shirt’s profits, which is such a dick move.
Instead, they just gave me credit as “inspiration” on that shirt’s page. There is nothing in their contract through submission preventing them from doing this; you can submit something, they can modify/redo your idea, and pay you nothing.
Fuck Blipshift.
Edit: Not sure I agree with the cause. A lot of those properties, even with a burnt up wreck of a house, are still worth over a million dollars, sometimes multiple millions. Is this money going to apartment dwellers only? But if it’s going to people who own/inherited property worth millions, it does not sit well with me.
😮
So people shouldn’t help others because they live in a wealthy area? Even though they lost everything they own, possibly including their pets? That’s a pretty horrible thing to say.
So horrible, in fact, that I don’t care all that much about your claim that Blipshift stole your idea.
That really sucks for them, and it’s horrible that it happened.
But are you suggesting people who make less than 100k a year should be donating their money to people who own property with millions? That makes no sense to me.
The money raised isn’t going to property owners. It’s going to a charity that supports injured firefighters. Sounds like a good cause to me.
“has been handing out cash aid to victims of the Palisades, Eaton, and other fires”
Ordered! Cool shirt, good cause.
Done, I haven’t cared for their shirts, but this is for a good cause so worth trying again.
Poster ordered!
They don’t sell my shit size (nobody with anything cool does).
My god man, what are you eating??
Carbs. All of them.
Can we start a Typo of the Day award?
LOL!
Even if the edit button hadn’t timed out, I’d leave it.
Do you need one of these planes to make an emergency prune juice drop at your home? 1600 gallons should have you firing like a machine gun.
Naw, things are moving fine down there.
My dad’s a lifelong Boomer aviation nut/pilot/etc and a former Bombardier guy, too. He’s an uber-nerd for this specific plane and this is a great cause (he even finished engineering school in LA in the early 70s). Thanks for posting!