Flying Tankers is Complicated

By the time that I had been writing about aerial wildland firefighting for a few months I had realized that flying tankers is complicated. Moreover, a couple of tanker pilots that I correspond with will be quick to remind me that the tanker business is complicated. Recently, I have have found reflecting on the fact that the tanker business being complicated.

Speaking of being complicated, even flying Cessna trainers (e.g. the Cessna 172) used by many flight schools is not uncomplicated. There is a lot for the student pilot to learn, both for the systems portion of the FAA written exam as well as all aspects involved in flying the airplane. The Cessna trainers do not have retractable landing gear and have what is known as a fixed pitch propeller. You can not change the pitch or angle of a fixed pitch propeller as you can with controllable pitch propellers found in more complex airplanes. And as a reminder, the Cessna trainers have one engine and what is known as tricycle landing gear - two main wheels and a nose wheel. By the time the student pilot has passed all of the FAA exams (written and practical) flying a Cessna trainer should be close to being second nature.

The next level of complexity in airplanes could be a plane with retractable landing gear and a controllable-pitch propeller. Not only do you have to retract your landing gear at the correct speed after take-off and extend it again before landing, the controllable-pitch propeller means more instruments to monitor. The change to a tail wheel plane means learning how this plane, known as a tail dragger, handles. At one time, taildraggers were the convention, now a days, there are more tricycle gear planes than tail draggers.

When you transition to a more complex airplane there is another round of sessions with a certified flight instructor.

Take the Air Tractor 802F (one of the types of SEATs used in aerial wildland firefighting), a tail dragger, with non-retractable landing gear, and a type of controllable-pitch propeller known as a constant speed propeller. Now, add in the gate system for dropping retardant and remember that SEATs -- as do other tankers -- fly low, often in windy conditions in mountainous areas making drops on a wildfire. Flying SEATs is way complicated.

Now take a heavy tanker, such as one of Butler's DC-7's (4 engines), a P-2 (2 engines plus 2 jets), or a P-3 (4 engines. More engines, more instruments. Another layer of complexity is added with multi-engines on top of the complexity of retardant drops.

A verbal picture of initial attack

Please bear with me as I experiment with painting a verbal picture of tankers and helos working fires without relying on photos or videos.

I offer these two hypothetical stories of air resources used in initial attack. In both stories, residences are not threatened and there are no evacuations.

Perhaps there is a small fire somewhere in California. Doesn't matter where. Someone reports the fire, doesn't matter who, and the nearest CAL Fire base sends up their S-2T tanker(s) and OV-10 air attack plane. Ground crews are deployed, but the S-2T tanker(s) get there first, it is only a very short flight to the fire. Perhaps the fire is an acre or two. The tankers start laying retardant lines around the fire, go back to their base, reload and go back. By this time, the OV-10 Air Attack plane has arrived. The ground crews arrive and start building line. The S-2T tankers have reloaded and returned. Perhaps by the third load, the S-2T's have built a retardant line around the fire and Air Attack releases them from the fire. Their job is done. The ground crews contain the fire not long after. Perhaps only three or four have passed since the fire was first reported. The fire is contained, ground crews are their mopping up. The fire will soon be under control.

There is a small fire reported early one afternoon in a forested area during the spring fire season in a mid-atlantic state. The fire burns in an area that is difficult to access by ground crews, and fuels are dry making this a tricky fire that could grow into a major fire. SEATs are on contract. Two are already loaded and ready to go from a base only a few minutes flight time from the fire. The State Forest Fire Service mobilizes crews to go to the fire along with volunteer municipal firefighters under mutual aid. The SEATs are there early on, bombing the fire with their load. A helo with a bucket arrives. Everyone, on the air and on the ground, work together to contain the fire before it "got it" and became a major fire. The fire is well on the way to being contained by nightfall when the air operations are called off. Ground crews stay over night. Early the next morning, the fire is 100 percent contained. By mid-day the fire is under control.

On Helos

As I was writing about the Herriman Fire the other day, I got thinking about the important role that helos play in wildland fire fighting, whether it be for transporting cargo, helitack operations, or bucket operations.

So, when I went on you tube just now to like for videos of aerial wildland fire fighting operations, I did so with the intent of finding a video showing help operations. I believe that some or all of the footage in this video was shot in Canada. But that doesn't matter, for this could be the U.S. or any one of a number of other countries for that matter. I also wanted to find a video showing light or medium weight helicopters, along with some footage that I had not embedded previously. Enjoy.

Herriman Fire: update

The other day, I wrote about the Herriman Fire here and here. Sometime yesterday, I saw this inciweb page for the Herriman Fire including a map and news reports (the last one posted yesterday evening). I saw a report earlier today on KTSU (fox13now):

• the fire was at 50 percent containment,
• a little over 4,300 acres have burned,
• four National Guard Blackhawks worked the fire yesterday,
• a lightning storm moved into the fire,
• ground and air crews worked hard during yesterday's Red Flag conditions, with the fire seeing minimal if any growth,
• flooding may be a concern and firefighters were pulled off the line during the storms this morning.
• some residents were allowed back into their homes yesterday and evacuation remained in place, at least through this afternoon for others.

The bereadyHerriman twitter site just reported (I am writing this at 5:31 PM EDT), that all evacuation orders will be lifted at 4PM.

According to the latest update on inciweb -- yesterday evening -- the following resources were used:

• 400 personnel (estimated)
• 35 engines
• 7 crews
• 2 helicopters
• 2 single engine air tankers (SEATs)
• 3 heavy air tankers
• 6 dozers

Note that I wrote that four National Guard Blackhawk helos were used on the fire yesterday. I think, but am not sure, that they are not included in the numbers from inciweb. A temporary flight restriction is in place around the fire.

Some of the news reports that I have seen include short clips of air tankers (I think it was a P-2), a helo and bucket, and a National Guard Blackhawk helo working the fire. Even though I have no clips to show you here, it sounds to me like the airtankers and helos (including the National Guard Blackhawks) have played an important role in working this fire in support of the ground crews.

Machine Gun Fire - Herriman Utah - Utah Fire Info

I was just looking at the webpage for the Eastern Great Basin Coordination Center to see what, if any information they have about the Machine Gun Fire. I found a link to the Utah Fire Info home page. The Utah Fire Info Page has a map showing the location of current active wildland fires in Utah. Clicking on each "fire icon" brings up some information about each fire. There is also a box on the left side of the page with the same information about each fire, including the Machine Gun Fire.

Machine Gun Fire - Herriman Utah

I was going through this morning's new posts on the wildlandfire.com hotlist forums when I saw this Wildland Fire Hotlist thread on the Machine Gun Fire in Herriman Utah (near Salt Lake City). Being intrigued by the reports of damage to homes as well as evacuations affecting some 1,600 homes I followed up on this fire. The video that I have embedded above was posted to youtube by the Salt Lake Tribune showing footage of the fire that was shot last night.

I have been accessing reports, including live streams from the Fox affiliate in Salt Lake City (fox13now) on and off for the last few hours. Most if not all of the information that I am reporting here on the fire has come from fox13now, and those of you wanting current information might want to check them out, or check out the Salt Lake Tribune. There is also a twitter page for the fire. The fire was started at Camp Williams near Herriman on Sunday afternoon (Sept. 19), the National Guard confirmed in an interview carried by fox13now that live ammo was the cause of the fire. From what I understand by listening to weather reports on fox13now, the winds were upwards of 50 mph yesterday afternoon making things extremely difficult for firefighters working the fire. By later in the evening, at least three houses had been destroyed, residents of some 1,600 houses had been evacuated, and the fire had grown to about 3,500 acres.

As of this writing (3:20 PM EDT), evacuation orders are still in place. Winds today are somewhat calmer but are forecasted to pick up tomorrow (Tuesday, Sept. 21), though not at levels experienced yesterday. There is a type III incident team in place, I heard a couple of interviews with one of their officers. Earlier this morning it was reported that the fire had grown to 10,000 acres but this figure was scaled back to 3,500 acres according to a recent fox13now interview with the type III incident officer. In this same interview that I heard live only a short time ago on fox13now, she reported that there were three heavy airtankers, two SEATs, and a number of helos (including National Guard Black Hawke's) working the fire. I have not been able to find any videos of the air operations, but I did see the following video, also posted to youtube by the Salt Lake Tribune with aerial footage of the fire damage.

Miranda Fire (part 3 of 3): retardant drops

Larry described the initial response to the Miranda Fire, which burned on Federal lands:

The fire started within 600 feet of state protected land and the initial ground response was by the Oregon Department of Forestry. Tanker 62 was used initially because of a lack of immediately available Federal resources. T62 was released under the current joint use policy when additional Federal resources were on the way. For example, T17 eventually arrived from Moses Lake.

Jim Hansen, Klamath Falls Air Attack, took a series of aerial photos of the Miranda Fire, including tanker operations. These photographs are used here with his permission. Larry added some annotations to these photos that to go along his commentary of the fire. I found that these photos along with Larry's commentary and annotations provided me with an excellent up close and personal look of air tanker operations.

Referring to the photo above, Larry begins by setting the stage:

I had to start the drop a bit early because we had a strong tailwind and they wanted to be sure to tie into the road with retardant to make an anchor point.

He added some annotations so that you can follow along:

Red Arrow: This is the road that I was instructed to be sure to tie into to act as an anchor point.

Greenish Arrow: This is a second road. This drop carried almost to the road with the tailwind.Tanker 17 was to extend this drop and try to start around the head in a right turn. It isn't readily apparent in these pictures,but the terrain rose in the direction of the drops,so a right turn was used for the exit. This picture shows Tanker 62 closely following the leadplane.

Moving on to the second photo, Larry continues:

Red Arrow: This points to the anchor point road from first picture.

Green Arrow: This is the second road that figures in the Tanker 17 drop pictures.

Yellow Circle: This is the leadplane starting his right turn to avoid the rising terrain.

Looking at the third picture, Larry goes on to explain:

Red Arrow: This points to the anchor point road at the beginning of T62's first drop.

Yellow Line: This line shows T62's first drop on the Left Flank of the fire.

Green Line: This line shows T62's retardant line from the second load which anchored to the same road as the first load,but on the Right Flank of the fire.

We end with the fourth and last picture of the series. Tanker 62 had been released from the fire by the time Tanker 17 arrived. Larry says that

This picture shows Tanker 17's second load. This was after I'd been released from the fire, so I can only give an educated guess, which follows:

T17's first load extended T62's first load and this picture shows T17 extending his first load (which had extended T62's first load).

Red Arrow: This is the second road from the first and second pictures. Tanker 62's first drop ended just short of this road.

Yellow Line: This retardant is from T17's first load.There was also a SEAT working on the fire (T845), so any stray retardant that runs at odd angles to the main line is likely from his attempts to fill in or strengthen weak spots in the line.The wind made exact tie-ins difficult.

Green Circle: This is Tanker 17.

Orange Circle: This is the Leadplane.

He wraps by saying that "the parts involving Tanker 62 should be completely accurate. Those on Tanker 17 are probably 95% accurate."

There is not much else I can add to Jim's photos and Larry's wonderful commentary and annotations. He has given us an up close and personal look at tanker operations on the Miranda Fire. I don't know about you, but I found that these pictures and commentary have made tanker operations at a wildfire come alive. Thank-you Larry and Jim!

Miranda Fire: Flying to the fire (part 2 of 3)

When Larry and I were discussing the Miranda he had this to say about the route he took:

Just for reference,when we get a fire to the east of Medford, the terrain usually climbs faster than we can. So,we take the scenic tour until we can get to about 6,000-6,500 ft, which will get us past Mt. McLoughlin on the Four Mile Lake side (just to the north of the mountain) or on the Lake of the Woods side (just to the south). We took the Lake of the Woods path to Miranda as it's a couple of hundred feet lower than going over Four Mile Lake.

I have spent some time thinking about the best graphic to show to go with Larry’s description about the route he took. I settled on this excerpt from an aeronautical chart (Klamath Falls Sectional Chart) covering the Oregon area. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) makes digital raster file versions of Sectional Charts put out by the Federal Aviation Administration, National Aeronautical Charting Office freely available charts on this webpage. These files, probably meant for GPS devices are rather large in size, much too large to reproduce here. However, I was able to use my pdf viewer, to extract the relevant portion of the Klamath  Falls Sectional showing the location of the Miranda Fire.

One of the areas depicted on the chart are different kinds of airspace, e.g. the thick solid purple line around the airport, which I labeled as Medford. Go here to read what I hope is a freely available booklet describing the different kinds of airspace in the U.S. The airport that I labeled Medford, Rouge Valley International Airport, is where Larry’s tanker, tanker 62 is based while on contract with the Oregon Department of Forestry. In flying out of Medford on his way to the Miranda Fire, he had to avoid Mt. McLoughlin (9,495 ft.), that I labeled with the letter A. If you look at the mountain on the chart, you will notice that as the elevation increases, the brown shading darkens. Look around Medford and you will green shading, indicating a lower altitude.

The key here is that Larry has to avoid the higher terrain until he is able to climb to a high enough altitude. Remember that he is flying heavy with a full load of retardant! He did this by flying south of Mt. McLoughlin by Lake of the Woods (“B”). I’m not sure of the exact route he took to the MIranda Fire, labeled on the map. I’m sure that his choice of the route depends on the terrain. But I’m fairly certain that he crossed Upper Klamath Lake, perhaps flying over the area called Modoc Point (see the little purple flag on the east side of the Lake). Modoc Point is a distinctive feature, see the google earth image and you will what seems to be fields at Modoc Point and forested areas to the south of Modoc Point. Pilots flying under visual flight rules often rely on distinctive visual “waypoints” and other features (railroads, powerlines, and roads) noted on the charts.

In closing, I want to acknowledge that aeronautical charts take some getting used to. I spent many hours before, during, and after attending ground school learning my way around aeronautical charts. There were several questions on the FAA written private pilot exam on using aeronautical charts. Passing this written exam, while giving my some confidence, has given me an appreciation for the complexity of flying. I am not going to even try to offer a crash course in using these charts. The AOPA has what I think is a freely available document  here that provides a description of some of the symbols on the chart, with a focus on airspace.

Next up: retardant drops.

Miranda Fire part 1 of 3

Larry Kraus, pilot of Butler’s DC-7 T-62, has been on contract with the Oregon Department of Forestry since early July. Some of you will recall that I have written a couple of series of articles on T62: articles about DC-7 tankers and articles about T62 in action. Larry and I have been in touch since he went on contract. He gave me some information about one of the fires that T62 flew. This was the Miranda Fire, first reported on Thursday July 22. It was located about 10 miles east of Chiloquin, Oregon. It eventually burned about 50 acres before the fire was fully lined later that evening, go here and here for more information on that fire.

I am going to start with the location of the fire, before discussing the approximate route that Larry took to get to the fire in part 2. Part 3 focuses on retardant drops on the Miranda Fire.

Larry gave me the latitude and longitude of the fire which I used to plot the fire in google earth.

Next up, flying to the fire.

Note: As a point of reference, the Miranda Fire is located at 42 degrees 37.4757 minutes north and 121 degrees 40.3301 minutes west.

Fourmile Canyon Fire

I have been aware of the Fourmile Canyon Fire, burning five miles west of downtown Boulder CO, for a few days now. After writing yesterday about the houses lost as a result of the explosion of the gas main in San Bruno, CA I knew that I had to write about this fire. Not just because of the video that I embedded above (Sept. 8, CBS4 in Denver), but because I knew that residence had been lost in this fire. According to the Sept. 10 update from inciweb, 172 structures have been lost, of these 169 were residences.

According to the latest update (Sept 11) from inciweb the fire has burned 6,427 acres and is at 56 percent containment with seven minor injuries. The fire started on Sept. 6.

The main incident page on inciweb for this fire may be found here, there is a map showing the location of the fire, links for news reports, photos, satellite imagery, etc.

I am sorry for those who lost their homes in this fire, and relieved that injuries to date have been minor. I again offer this post as a sign of my thoughts and prayers.

postcript: If you are seeing test annotations in the video, I apologize. If you see them, you should be able to turn them off by clicking on the triangle on lower right of the video. You will see three icons, click on the top one and that should turn off text annotations. Alternatively, I found a copy of the video on the video archive page of CBS4 Denver, you may go here to view this video online. As always, I don't know how long that link will be active.

San Bruno Gas Main Explosion

By now, I think that many of you have heard about the rupture of the gas main in San Bruno, CA. Four people are dead, 52 are injured and 38 homes were destroyed in the resulting fire. The video I embedded above was shot this morning by KGO (ABC-7) in San Francisco.

There is not much more that I can say. In a video report I saw last night, the Mayor of San Bruno asked all of us for our prayers. I offer this article as an act of prayer.

San Francisco Chronicle Article
photos from San Francisco Chronicle
1st hand account from Brian Carmody. The footage was taken about 15 minutes after the explosion. The interview was with KGO reporters. The video is a little over 15 minutes and is on the intense side, perhaps not for the faint of heart. Brain is a freelance photographer.

Brushfire on Staten Island rekindles

I took a break this noon and caught this news report from WABC TV in New York that a brushfire on Staten Island (see the article from the NY Daily News on the right side of the page) has rekindled. The Fox outlet in NY (myfoxny.com) was showing a live stream of the fire at about 1 PM EDT.

Update on January 9, 2012. For some reason, the embed code that I used in Sept. 2010 does not work. Don't quite know how to fix it. But I did find the video below on youtube that I believe is from the same fire.

A hike up one edge of wildfire burnout operations in NJ

A friend and I went for a hike the other day on the Douglas Trail in the Worthington State Forest in NJ. We accessed the trail from the Douglas Parking Area on Old Mine Rd. tThe other end of the trail terminates on the Ridge (1,100 ft climb over 1.7 miles) at the Appalachian Trail (AT) about 6/10 of a mile west of Sunfish Pond. 

We were about half way up the trail when I saw evidence of burning operations. We continued to follow the burned area on the left side of the trail as we hiked up the Douglas Trail to the Appalachian Trail. When we reached the AT we turned left, continuing to follow the burn area until we turned around after a five or ten minute hike along the AT. Because these burning operations  -- burned ground and underbrush, some scorching on lower tree trunks -- were only on one side of the trail and because the Douglas Trail terminates at the Appalachian Trail about 6/10 of a mile west of Sunfish Pond, I suspect that what I was looking at may have been the back burning operations used to control the Sunfish Pond Fire. We did not hike to Sunfish Pond, our goal was the ridge and we did that.

I suspect that this burn area was shown in the aerial photo that I posted with this article.

As I understand it when first reported the fire was about five acres, soon growing to twenty acres. Back-firing operations were used by fire fighters to bring the fire under control brought the final acreage burned up to about 250 acres. Go here to see reports on the Wildland Fire Hotlist forums about the fire, the report I am referring to is the first report posted.

Back firing or burn out operations are used by wildland firefighters to indirectly attack the fire. Wildland firefighters start from natural or constructed fire breaks. Examples are old fire control lines, hiking trails, woods roads and the like. In this case the wildland fire fighters intentionally burn the fuels between these "fire breaks" and the perimeter of the active fire. In some cases, these fire breaks may be a distance from the active edge of the fire. The idea is to burn the fuels so the fire can eventually be contained.

I was unable to find a good hiking map of this ridge (sometimes known as the Kittatinny Ridge) at the Delaware Water Gap in NJ. However, the image from google earth with the topological maps from the USGS gives you an idea of the terrain. I was able to pinpoint the parking area by going here and plotted that point on google earth. With the help of my paper hiking maps of the Kittatinny Ridge from the NY-NJ Trail Conference (2005 edition) and a conversation with someone at the Worthington State Forest I was able to approximate where the Douglas Trail joins the Appalachian Trail. The Douglas Trail climbs the ridge through a series of switch backs. 

I am attaching a couple of photos of the area that I think may have been a part of these backfiring operations for the Sunfish Pond Fire. I took the first two photos on my way up the Douglas Trail. The last photo is taken on the way down. 

Sunfish Pond Fire (Warren Cnty NJ) from the air

I wrote about the Sunfish Pond Fire that burned on the Appalachian Ridge north of the Delaware Water Gap in NJ here and here. To review the Sunfish Pond Fire was first reported by a hiker on the afternoon of August 6. In a steep, remote, and inaccessible area, the NJ Forest Fire Service contained the fire on August 10. It rained the night of August 12.

On Friday August 13, I went for scenic ride. At the time of the flight, I knew that the fire was already contained, that there were no Temporary Flight Restrictions and/or NOTAMs over the fire area (I don't believe there every were any), and that it had rained the night before. I therefore felt safe asking the pilot, if we could fly over the burn area on top of the Appalachian Ridge. Just so you know, we would not fly over an uncontained wildland fire if there was any chance of air operations in support of ground crews, TFR or no TFR.

A couple of hours after I got home after my flight, I found out that the Sunfish Pond Fire had been declared under control about 30 minutes before we took off.

Back to our flight, the weather that morning was beautiful with minimal winds. The minimal winds made our flight to and over the Ridge fairly easy. And I could take photos without risking getting air sick, something I could not do if it was windy.

We flew past Sunfish Pond because I was thinking about the mileage that I had hiked a few years ago from the Dunnefield Creek Parking area, off of I-80, to Sunfish Pond. The distance I walked was in statue miles, in aviation nautical miles are used. One statute mile equals about .898 nautical miles. Moreover, the distance walked may be a little longer than flying distance. Fortunately, hiking this area and being familiar with the hiking maps of the area meant that I recognized landmarks from the air. So it wasn't to long before we found Sunfish Pond. And once we did, the burn area was easy to spot. I took photos, four of which I am showing you here.

In the first photo with Sunfish Pond at the top of the photo, you will see a lighter patch of vegetation on the right hand side of the photo. I think that is an old burn area. In this photo the camera is pointing more or less due east. The Appalachian Trial is between the new burn and older burn. The ground elevation at Sunfish Pond is around 1,300 ft above sea level.

Here are three more photos that I took that day. Enjoy!

DC-3

Here are a couple of videos of Buffalo Airway's DC-3's. Buffalo Airways, located in Yellowknife, NWT in Canada is one of the last commercial operators of DC-3's. She is beautiful, isn't she?

Postscript added Sunday September 5, 2010

Specifications for the DC-3 may be found here.

A I understand it smoke jumpers used relied heavily on DC-3's for a lot of years. Other aircrafts such as Sherpas are being used by smoke jumpers, but the DC-3's are still around. For example, the fleet of aircraft used by the Missoula Smokejumpers includes a turbine DC-3.

My journey into Aviation - ground school and FAA PP exam

Several months ago I decided that it was time for me to learn more about aviation and the world of flying airplanes. For reasons that I won't go into, I found out that I may never be able to obtain a private pilot's certificate. I am not taking flight training through a flight school, and am not a student pilot. But I found out that there are still things that I can do to learn more about the world of flying airplanes. To that end, I took what is known is ground school, offered at a nearby general aviation airport. What was great about this ground school, was that this was an actual school, on site, two nights a week.

For those who are able to, a few words about the process of getting a private pilot's certificate. Obtaining a private pilot's certificate involves a couple of things, one is ground school and then passing the FAA private pilot written test, At the same time if you are working on getting your private pilot's certificate you will enroll in the flight training component of the flight school In flight training, you will go flying with your certified flight instructor in a trainer, often a Cessna 172, and learn how to fly the airplane. When you have passed your FAA private pilot written test and another pre-solo test administered by your flight school, your certified flight instructor endorses your log book for solos as a student pilot.

There are a variety of maneuvers that you must have learned how to perform, and a minimum amount of flight time (including solo time) required before you go for the practical exam administered by an FAA flight examiner. This involves an oral test as well as a practical flying test where the student is in the left seat as pilot, and the examiner is sitting in the right seat asking you to perform various maneuvers. If you pass both then you will have your pilot's certificate with the appropriate endorsement in your logbook.

Back to what I can and can do. I can go as far as taking the FAA private pilot written exam and that is all. I am not enrolled in flight training, so I do not have a flight instructor. I'll talk about the FAA private pilot exam a little later. I will not get as far as having my log book endorsed as a student pilot. Of course, I will never solo. I can go on scenic rides and continue learning more about aviation.

I do have a young pilot, who takes me on scenic flights, the added benefit being that I have learned a lot about flying and aviation from him. These scenic rides helped me as I was studying for the exam. For example, there are many questions about the various instruments on the airplane as well as navigation aides ("those damn needles'). And I had to learn them all, taking scenic flights in the right seat helped me to learn the instruments and the needles.

After completing ground school, I took and passed the FAA private pilot exam. The date was April 13, 2010.

The pictures above are of one of the Cessna 172 airplanes (aka trainers) that I take my scenic rides in. Where the pilot is sitting in the left seat, flying the plane. And I am in the right seat. We have a great time. She is a nice little airplane.

I'll be writing more about journey into aviation from time to time, so stay tuned.

One thing that I have done that fits in here is that I have added a new page -- Aviation Info and Links -- on my blog highlighting some of the things that I learned in ground school. You will also note that I moved the links to my blog pages to the right side of my blog page. I will be referring to some of this information in future blog articles. I rely heavily on various links that I have found over the last several months, some sent to me by my tanker pilot friends. Thank-you guys!

Hurricane Earl

I got some kmz files from NOAA for Google Earth. What it shown here is the track and the cone for Hurricane Earl as of 8AM on Thursday, Sept. 2. There is a kmz file indicating hurricane/tropical storm watches and warnings but I could not find a "key" so I left it out of the image.

For those of you are interested in such things, I have included a widget on the right side of this blog from NOAA that links to the latest advisories on Hurricane Earl. I'll leave this up for the duration as Earl continues his trek off the east coast of the U.S.