AirCrane at Station Fire

The helitanker in the video is an Erickson Air Crane, under contract (with the US Forest Service?). To the best of my knowledge it is not a LA County helitanker. It is probably under contract. I believe that Erickson has a contract with LA County.

One of the lighter moments of the hours that I spent watching live footage of the Station Fire came with watching the AirCranes working the fire. One reason is because I got to know one of Erickson Air Crane's senior pilots, Kenny Chapman through my writings. I know that Kenny was based in California a couple of months ago, I don't know if he still is. And if he is, I don't know if he is or was working the Station Fire. But I thought of him every time I saw an AirCrane make a drop.

The levity came early Tuesday evening after I watched about ten minutes of footage of the Martin Mars before and during her drop on Mt. Wilson. After the drop, they switched to shots of AirCranes (Erickson and others) using their snorkle tubes to fill their tankers. Some shots were of the helitanker filling their tanks from a pond. Others showed them filling from tanks, sometimes known as dip tanks. You know the sound you can make when you are drinking a bottle of soda from a bottle , when the bottle is almost empty? You want to get every last drop of soda. Well the guys in the news helo were making that noise as the helitanker was filling its tanks from the dip tank. I cracked up, made me laugh out loud.

I made a post a couple of months ago where I embedded a video of an AirCrane filling its tank from a dip tank, it may be found here.