Lives are not replaceable

I have been giving considerable thought to one of the last sentences in my post of November 6.. Recall that I ended with:

Strong winds and bad turbulence are dangerous to all aviation interests, include aerial firefighting operations, leading to grounding of aerial fire fighting operations. So, if you are living near a wildfire AND the winds are strong AND you don’t see tankers and helicopters making retardant or water/foam drops on the fire there is a reason. They are not flying because it is not safe to do so.

I gave careful consideration to what I can add given that I am not an aerial firefighter. Nor am I resident of the wildland/urban interface in parts of America that are especially vulnerable to wildland fires such as southern California, the southwest, the northwest, etc. Nor am I a (ground) wildland fire fighter. For that matter, I am not a structure firefighter nor am I a first responder (e.g. EMT).

But I have been writing about aerial wildland firefighting for about ten or eleven months now, and I have learned a lot of things, including (and not limited to) reasons tankers don't fly. That is:

• Lives are not replaceable.
• Pilots and crews care about what they do, and they are good at it. They want to help the wildland firefighters on the ground protect your home, AND they want to do so safely.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Strong winds, rotors and turbulence WILL overpower an airplane. Flying in strong winds and turbulence including but not limited to downdrafts and rotors puts pilots and crews at great risk for fatal crashes.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Pilots want to be safe, they don't have a death wish. And they want you to be safe.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Not only does a tanker crash put the lives of the pilot and crew in jeopardy, it puts the lives of all those on the ground in jeopardy as well. This includes you, your family, and your neighbors.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Perhaps wildland firefighters on the ground can save your house, but they won't be able to save your house if a tanker crashes into it.
• Lives are not replaceable.
• Post-crash fires might exacerbate an already bad situation, perhaps increasing the size of the wild fire.
• Lives are not replaceable.

In summary, there are certain rules with regard to sustained and gusting winds and turbulence that tanker pilots must deal with.The most important one being, If the winds are blowing strong enough that aircraft are likely to be destroyed, they won't fly. But also, if winds are blowing strong enough that retardant will be blown away before it hits the ground, they don't fly.

Lives are not replaceable.



postscript: I read in one of the Interagency Online Aviation Training Modules that what is good for an airplane is also good for a helicopter. And what is bad for an airplane is bad for a helicopter. So, I assume (for the time being) that what I wrote above applies equally to airplanes and helicopters. I hope to look into how downdrafts, rotors, and turbulence affect helicopters flying fires in the coming weeks and will write about what I find here.