I have blogged about aerial wildland firefighting since 2009. I am not a firefighter and am not a pilot, just an interested bystander who wants to learn more and share what I learn here. Join me here as I blog on the aircraft and the pilots who fight wildland fires from the air in support of crews on the ground. I also blog on concerns affecting fire crews on the ground as well as other aviation and meteorology issues. Learn what it takes to do jobs that are staffed by the best of the best.
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Friday, November 27, 2009
Type 1 helicopters: S-70
The military counterpart of the civilian Sikorsky S-70 helicopter is known as the UH-60 "Black Hawk". The first prototype of the UH-60, a design replacement for the Bell UH-1 or Huey series of helicopters, entered service in October 1974. It entered service in the U.S. Army in 1979.
In addition, there is a nice write-up (with some pictures) of the many variants of the UH-60 and the S-70 here, note that this is a MS Word document. The many variants make direct comparisons difficult.
The firefighting version of the S-70 is known as the Firehawk. The Firehawk can be fitted with a removable 1,000 gallon fixed tank. Existing Black Hawk's can be converted to the Firehawk configuration or the Firehawk can be built as a new model. The LA County Fire Dept has an air operations webpage with pictures of one of their three Firehawks and a description of the fixed tank system.
I was contacted by someone at aerial firefighting who flew the S-70 firehawk for five seasons. In the interest of privacy and all that I don't publish e-mails, so I deleted his comment. I am looking forward to corresponding with him and will write more about the S-70 in a month or so.
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