Flooding in Vermont

Residents in thirteen Vermont towns are isolated when flood waters from Irene damaged the roads leading to these towns so badly that vehicles can not get in or out.

Vermont Public Radio has been covering these events:

A list of the thirteen towns,
Aug 30 report on efforts to rebuild US Rte 4 into Mendon and Killington VT
text
VT DOT efforts to restore communications to the thirteen towns (8/30/11)

This just in, dated today, from VPR:

One isolated VT town to be reached today, Wed.

Reports on Wilmington, VT another town isolated by Irene
National Guard Moving Supplies into Wilmington
CBS News video from helo over Wilmington VT.

The Burlington Free Press (BFP). Links from the Burlington Free Press may only be freely available for seven days, I'm not sure. For an article with a photo gallery in today's BFP today's efforts to reach these isolated communities in VT go here.

Line of Duty Death: Princeton NJ EMT Michael Kenwood

Michael Kenwood, EMT with the Princeton (NJ) First Aid & Rescue Squad is one of seven who died in NJ during Irene. He died late Sunday night, August 28 from injuries sustained while attempting to reach a car submerged in the water. RIP Michael. The Times of Trenton has an article about Michael's death. My condolences go out to Michael's family, friends, colleagues and all who loved him.

I had embedded the audio feed the announcement of Michael's passing by the Mercer County Communications Center for about 20 hours. For those of you who want to listen to this feed, it may be found here.

At the time of this writing (8/30/11), there are six others who have died in NJ as a result of Irene. And some 30 +/- other deaths attributed to Irene up and down the east coast. I would like to offer my condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of all those whose deaths are attributed to Irene.

Revised 8/31/11 at 10:41 EDT

Flooding in NJ from Irene: Denville

More years ago than I care to admit, I commuted to NYC by bus from Morris County through the town of Denville. I'd expect that this video was shot either yesterday or today.

updated on July 18, 2013: video that I had embedded here showing flooding in Denville NJ during Irene is no longer available. :-(

Conair Convair 580 Tanker (Pt 2) - pre-flight briefing

Sit in on pre-flight briefing departure briefing between Conair pilots Chris Baldwin in the left seat and Jeff Broussseau in the right seat prior to a practice fire bombing run over the Abbotsford International Airport in April 2011.

I don't exactly know if all pre-flight briefings in the tanker biz are this long (8 to 9 minutes). But, I certainly learned a lot about what is making a retardant drop on a fire and I think you will too.

A first look at flooding in NJ from Irene

This video focuses on Manville, a town whose residents are all too familiar with flooding.

And a link to a google map, courtesy of the Star Ledger may be found here, data is from 5:30 Pm on August 28.

Good night Irene

Good night Irene, and good riddance. I never loved you.

But I grew up with Pete Seeger, heard him in concert once with Arlo Guthrie some, oh never mind. It was a long time ago. It somehow feels fitting to embed this video here.

NJ is not the only State impacted by Irene. But at the moment, I can only think about NJ. So bear with me. We will be experiencing major flooding in NJ over the next couple of days. Some 800,000 people without power here, most of them on the shore. My county in northwest New Jersey has about 31,000 people without power as I write this, not bad all things considering.

I waited to post this until the NWS lifted the tropical storm warning for my county. Which they just did. Hardly any rain to speak of after about 7 AM, but the wind started the kick in on the back side of Irene. So, I sat in my house listening to sometimes 35 mph winds gusting.

I'll be looking for some videos tomorrow to show you. I have written about prior floods in NJ, so I'll follow suit for the next couple of posts at least.

Irene: Incident Management Teams and Hurricane Hunter Aircraft

Still here. Outer band of Irene starting to impact very southern NJ as I write this, We are due to see brunt of Irene starting late tonight into tomorrow (Sunday) early afternoon. Two things just came across my electronic desk that I want to share with you.

Many of you may have heard various weather media talk about the hurricane hunting aircraft that fly into (or over?) the hurricanes to make readings. These are two specially equipped P-# Orion aircraft, named Miss Piggy and Kermit. NOAA has a webpage where you can and find out more about Miss Piggy and Kermit, here.

Last but in no means least, I understand from Bill Gabbert's article on wildfiretoday that two national incident management teams have been activated to help us out in the northeast with Irene. One may go to New York, and the other may go to Boston. Grew up in the Boston burbs and experienced Hurricane Donna when I was six. I remember that one cause Donna cancelled my first day of first grade. And I lived in New York City many moons ago. Currently live in NJ. Thank-you to all the crew of these two incident management teams from the bottom of my heart. And the northeast thanks you.

Bill's article on the activation of these incident management teams may be found here.

Irene is coming

By now, many of you know that Hurricane Irene is due to impact much of the east coast of the U.S. in the coming days. I myself will be impacted on Sunday afternoon. I'm not quite sure what will happen. We are prepared and safe, being inland. But power outages and internet disruptions may happen. I have prepared a post for Monday, August 29 that should post automatically.

So, if you don't hear from me reporting on my experiences with Irene on Monday (8/29) or Tuesday (8/30), you will know the reason.

Conair Convair 580/600 airtankers (part 1)

I don't know the specifics, but I do know that the US Forest Service has contracted (or leased) three Convair 580/600 tankers from Conair, a Canadian company. I don't know exactly when the deal was finalized, but it was sometime after the USFS terminated its contract with Aero Union. Conair contracts with the Alaska Division of Forestry for Convair 580 tankers (I think), it may be these tankers that are currently under contract with the USFS. Bill Gabbert of Wildfire Today reported on the Convairs here.

I thought I'd provide some specifications for you. I'd like to thank a friend who helped me by providing me with some specifications for the Convair 580's from the American Museum of Aviation see their page on the Convair 580 technical specifications, I am only including some of the specs here, you will want to refer to the link I provided for more information:

Length: 81 feet 6 inches
wing span: 105 feet 4 inches
max take off weight: 58,156 lbs
max landing weight: 52,000 lbs
normal cruising speed: 325 mph or 282 knots
landing speed: 125 mph or 110 knots
engines: 2 Allison 501D13D rated at 3,800 eshp ea.

I think, but am not sure that the engines on the Convair 580's, the Allison's, are the same as on the P-3's and that they are turbo props. Interesting, huh?

When I knew that I wanted to write an article or two about the Convair 580's, I had it in my head that the retardant capacity of these birds is 2,000 gallons in ideal conditions. Higher temps at high elevation airports will require a lower amount of retardant. The same friend that I referred to earlier sent me a link to a power point presentation found on the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Neighborhood Discussion Center on loading the Convair 580's with retardant, go here download the file which will require Power Point or a presentation program that reads Power Point (I use Keynote on my Mac). I should warn you that I had some trouble downloading the file but was successful the second time around. Here is some useful information that you will find  on this power point presentation:

• A full load is 18,000 lbs or 2,000 gallons (assuming that retardant weighs 9 lbs per gallon). The full load may vary depending on the weight of the retardant use.
• The tank system used on the Convair 580's is the RADS II constant flow retardant tank system. This system is computer controlled and computer activated. As I understand it, the crew dials in the requested coverage level, and the two tank doors on the bottom of the tanker open just enough to let out the retardant at the desired coverage level.

Now, somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I suspected that in its hey day, Aero Union may have had something to do with the RADS II retardant tank system. So, I went to the Aero Union Corp. homepage and found a webpage on Aerial Firefighting Systems _ Constant Flow Delivery Systems, and clicked on the link that said "RADS II for the P-3/L-188 (a pdf file on the RADS II tank system) and lo and behold, I find out that Aero Union designed a RADS II retardant tank for the Convair 580. Interesting, huh?

This is about ten minutes of footage shot by Nick Mitchell at the Ken Fire on Monday, August 22 in the San Bernardino National Forest north of Los Angeles CA. As of the evening of August 23, 350 acres had burned with 80% containment. I believe that one residence was destroyed. The latest incident report from inciweb on the Ken Fire may be found here.

In the video you will see some footage of the aerial attack on the fire, including CAL FIRE's S-2T's and a couple of helitankers.

CAL FIRE's airtankers

I have found myself thinking about CAL FIRE recently, in part because I some of my family recently moved to southern California. I told my friends that CAL FIRE is top notch. I told them that they have 23 Grumman S-2T 1,200 gallon airtankers (1 is relief), and 14 OV-10A airtactical aircraft (1 is relief) at 13 bases around the state. In addition,CAL FIRE has 11 UH-1H Super Huey Helicopters (1 is relief). I told them where the closest CAL FIRE tanker base is. It happens to be Ramona and here is Ramona's webcam. Romana has two S-2T tankers (70 and 71). For a clickable map showing the locations of all 13 CAL FIRE tanker bases, go to this webpage of the CAL FIRE Pilot's Association.

I told them a little about initial attack, that the mission of CAL FIRE's tankers is to fly initial attack. According to this CAL FIRE web page on their air program, CAL FIRE's aircraft can reach most fires within 20 minutes. In initial attack, tankers and helos are deployed to a wildfire as soon as possible. The goal being to keep the fire as small as possible (1 to 10 acres) until ground troops can arrive. CAL FIRE is very good at initial attack.

I write more about initial attack here, here and here.

I have to admit that I wondered how and if the termination of Aero Union's contract by the US Forest Service might affect CAL FIRE's aerial firefighting guidelines. It did not take me long to remember that the mission, if you will. of CAL FIRE's tankers and helos is initial attack. Still I wondered . . .

Then, a couple of days ago, I saw references on a couple of websites (wildland fire and smokeinshow refering to a memo from CAL FIRE updating CAL FIRE's aircraft response guidelines, saying in part:

CAL FIRE will dispatch air tankers on initial attack (IA) in accordance with
existing agreements and per the California Mobilization Guide under the closest
forces concept. If a federal incident requires "load and return" of CAL FIRE air
tankers or additional CAL FIRE air tankers are ordered for the incident, the
Federal GACC will order federal air tankers(s) from the other California GACC or
through NICC as appropriate to replace CAL FIRE IA air tankers. CAL FIRE air
tankers should NOT be considered as a replacement for federal aircraft on
extended attack or major Federal incidents in California. ... CAL FIRE reserves the right to deny a request for use of CAL FIRE aircraft based
on CAL FIRE need to maintain effective initial attack capability and support
CAL FIRE extended attack or major incidents.

I was reassured to hear that CAL FIRE's mission of deploying tankers and helos for initial attack is unchanged after the grounding of Aero Union's tankers. You may want to refer to the memo itself for more information, it may downloaded as a pdf file here (also referred to above, so you don't have to download it twice).

The CAL FIRE tankers, including the two at Romona, will continue to fly initial attack. Or stay on call waiting for the initial attack call.

And may God help us if there are one or two major fires at the same time.

Up later in the week (I hope): an article or two with a little more information on Conair's Convair 580 tankers. As I understand it, these tankers are under contract/lease from our Canadian neighbors to the north.

Notes:

For more information about the Federal GACC (Geographic Area Coordination Center), see the GACC website. There are two GACC's for California, northern CA and southern CA.

According to the National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) website:

The National Interagency Coordination Center (NICC) is the focal point for coordinating the mobilization of resources for wildland fire and other incidents throughout the United States.

Aircraft are a resource.

Update on Idaho wildfires and wildfire in OR

In my wonderings on the internet earlier today, I noted a report on the Tin Pan Peak Fire in SW Oregon, I'm uncertain of the acreage burned at this time, I think it was around 400 acres or so. I saw on this wildlandfire hotlist thread a report from very early this morning that Butler's DC-7 tankers T-62 and T-66 (on contract with Oregon) worked the fire yesterday along with a helo and bucket.

Back to the wildfires in Idaho from earlier this week. At this point, the best update that I could find for you comes from inciweb. Inciweb is reporting here that all Boise BLM fires originating from the lightening storms last weekend are now contained.

I know from my friend that SEATs, a P-2V, some helos and one or two Conair CV 580 airtankers on loan from Canada worked the wildfires in and around Boise earlier this week.

Outdated links removed (8/2/15).

Wildfires in Idaho (part 1)

I know from my wonderings around the internet the past couple of days about wildfires that have been burning in Idaho. A friend of mine sent me links to videos and photos to share with you. I'll try to get more information for you in a later post, probably tomorrow. But I wanted to get this out tonight.

Here is some aerial footage of wildfires burning in Treasure Valley, courtesy of KBOI in Boise, Idaho



Here is a link to a photo gallery from ktvb, including a photo of a SEAT working another wildfire near Weiser, Idaho.

I am having trouble getting blogger to read the embed code in one video, but here is a link to the story and video from KBOI

Finally, a video of another wildfire approaching Mountain Home AFB.

Aero Union P-3's - I miss you

Four days ago (see this article from chicoer.com), I heard that Aero Union laid off their employees. When I first heard that the US Forest Service terminated its contract with Aero Union on July 29th, I was hoping for another outcome, that something could be worked out to get Aero Union's P-3 tankers back in the air. But it seems my hopes, our hopes did not come to pass. Pilots, crew and others at Aero Union have been laid off.

I know enough about the business of aerial wildland firefighting to know that for many of you, who you are is about flying tankers or fixing tankers or performing other ground support operations. And of course, you are now without a job in an already tough economic climate.

You did great work flying fires. While I have never seen you in person, so to speak, I have watched you fly fires on live stream at fires such as the Station Fire in 2009. It was awesome to watch you lay down a line of retardant on a fire, knowing that you might be able to come around again and drop the rest of your retardant before going back to base to reload. Knowing how much you were helping the crews on the ground fight the fire.

You will be missed.

In my own way, I am writing this for all affected by the lay offs at Aero Union, to let you know that I care. And it stinks.

I am not embarrassed to say that I have shed a few tears for you.

Lightening strikes and wildfires in NV (WGBCC)

A couple of weeks ago I came across a link for news and notes from the Western Great Basin Coordination Center (WGBCC). Some of you know or will recall that under the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) are eleven Geographic Coordination Centers, each with their own webpage.

Apparently the WGBCC has been using social media (twitter) for their news and notes along with a more traditional link that may be found here. I t was through the WGBCC news and notes, sent to me by a friend, that I first found out that the US Forest Service had terminated its contract with Aero Union. Anyway, over the last two weeks I have been to the WGBCC news and notes page to find out what is going on in that region (includes all or most of Nevada).

I noted an entry earlier today (August 15):

Significant lightning received in central and northeast Nevada last night. Elko reporting 8 new fires, the largest is 700 acres. (obtained from news and notes from the Western Great Basin Coordination Center, on Aug. 15, 2011).

I believe that Elko is a dispatch center in NV, see this document of unit identifiers in the WGBCC for more information.

Being curious about these fires and wondering what aerial firefighting resources might be assigned to these fires, I went to the hotlist forums for the western basin on wildland fire, here finding two threads about recent wildfires in the west basin. One is the Stockade Fire, and a thread devoted to that fire may be found here.. It had burned almost 400 acres earlier today. Aerial resources working the fire yesterday included a couple of P-2 tankers (T-11 and T-12). I don't know if either P-2 is working the fire today.

A second thread about a fire, the Salmon Fire, may be found here. The Salmon Fire came in at 700 acres earlier today. There are some aerial resources that were assigned to the fire, including what I think (but am not sure) are SEATs along with some helos.

About the Eagle Fire

This is some footage, about eight minutes worth, of aerial operations at the Eagle Fire that burned in San Diego County CA in July 2011. Among other reasons, I was interested in this particular fire because I have some family that recently moved to southern CA, so I have been paying closer attention to fires in southern CA. Also, the fire was large enough that I heard of it while I had limited e-mail and internet access in late July. So, I was curious about finding out a little more about the fire.

The fire, attributed to arson, eventually burned about 14,100 acres before being brought under control on July 30. For a summary of information about this fire, see this CAL FIRE page. I understand that one of the DC-10 tankers was activated for this fire.

The fire was still burning when the P-3's were grounded on July 29th. I am not certain if if any of Aero Union's P-3's were working the fire along with the S-2T's from CAL FIRE.

A thread on the wildland fire hotlist forums may be found here. Bill Gabbert of wildfire today has posted pictures of the Eagle fire, in three parts (so far), part 1, part 2, and part 3.

Sikorsky S-76B Helo take-off and rotor wash

I shot this video at a local summer solstice festival about six weeks ago. This is the first time that I have been this close to a large helo taking off.  The helo is a Sikorsky S-76B used by the NJ State Police for emergency medical operations. For more information about NJ's air medical services, go here.

I was especially interested in experiencing first hand the effects of rotor wash as the helo lifted off. You will see the effect for yourself at the appropriate point in the video as the camera shook a little when I experienced the effects of the initial rotor wash. As I understand it, rotor wash are winds created by the rotors of the helicopter. The "winds" from rotor wash are not dependent on altitude. Those of us on the ground, as I was when I shot the video can feel the winds from rotor wash as a helo flys low to the ground as it does during take-off.

I can't find a good short explanation about rotor wash to link to at the moment. I'll keep looking and if I find something, I'll follow-up with a link.

Here are some photos I took of the S-76B just before she took off.

revised on Aug. 12 2011, 3:25 PM and Aug. 20, 7:58 PM

B-17 and B-25 over AZ

H5 - WWII Bombers over Arizona Landscape from H5 Productions on Vimeo.

Here is a nice video showing a restored B-17 and B-25 in action over Arizona. I thought that this would be a nice way to wrap up the series of the B-17's service as a tanker. For more on the video, see this vimeo page. If I am not mistaken, both aircraft in this video are owned by the Arizona Wing of the Commemorative Air Force. If that is the case, then the B-17 that you are seeing is Sentimental Journey formerly seeing service as a fire bomber for Aero Union.

This is one of my favorite videos. Enjoy.

Added on February 1, 2017. I had to make a couple of changes to get the embed code to the video to work, it should now work in your browser. If it does not, just click on H5 - WWII Bombers over Arizona Landscape to go to the vimeo page where you can watch the video

Letter to B-17 air tankers

Letter to B-17 air tankers:

I wish that I could go back in time to see the first  time you flew as a tanker back in 1960, probably somewhere in or near California. I don't know what fire you flew on, but it doesn't really matter. More of your kin came into service, so by the mid 1960s there were many of you flying fires, carrying 1,800 gallons of retardant. 

The 1960s were still the early days in the air tanker business. There were many tanker crashes and some of your kin were lost, but those of you who survived continued to fly fires. 

You were built for stability so you were difficult to turn. Tanker flying always requires thinking ahead and knowing an escape route. Your pilots had to plan way ahead, but you kept flying fires.

You were not the fastest tanker in the fleet but in some cases you carried more retardant than the faster tankers. You got to the fire, made your drop, and got back to the base to get another retardant load, because you wanted to fly fires.

You flew a long time, for something like 25 years. That is a long time in the tanker business. Some of you are restored as warbirds, in WW II configurations. You continue to be loved and a part of our culture.

Today, you stand as testament to your designers, builders and the brave people who crewed you.  You are a much decorated veteran of two wars, one foreign and one domestic. Your service to the fire fighting community will not be forgotten.

More to come on B-17 service as an airtanker

I had the best intentions of writing the next article in my series on the B-17's service as an airtanker for posting today. I am hoping to post this next article either the end of this week or early next week. Thanks to all you wonderful people for your patience.

Tanker numbers (part 1)

Yesterday I was talking with a good friend about the recent termination of Aero Union's contract by the USFS, that there were now only 11 heavy air tankers (note 1) available. I went on to say that there were about three to four times the number of heavy tankers ten years ago then there are today. He needed some better numbers than I could provide for a project, so I asked my aviation historian friend, Tom Janney for some help. The following sentences come from my conversations with Tom. The idea being is to provide some relatively decent numbers representing the decline in the number of heavy tankers from 2001 to present. The numbers are good enough to get the point across that my friend is interested in, that the number of heavy tankers have decreased since over the last ten years and the loss of Aero Union's tankers only makes matters worse. I thought that my friend's question and Tom's response are interesting and pertinent to the recent termination of Aero Union's contract.

Prior to 2002, there were 44 airworthy heavy air tankers (note 2). At of the start of the 2011 fire season, there were 19 heavy air tankers available for use. As of August 2, 2011, there were only 11 heavy tankers (all Lockheed P-2V's) available.

Eleven is not enough.

This is the first of two or three articles on the numbers of federally contracted air tankers. I'll post the second article, focusing a little more on the aftermath of the 2002 tanker crashes as time allows, probably sometime next month.

Notes

1. For purposes of this article, when I use the phrase heavy air tankers, I am referring to air tankers with retardant tank capacity from 1,200 to 3,000 gallons. Where the capacity is under ideal conditions.

2. Simply, 44 airworthy heavy air tankers means that there were 44 heavy air tankers that the industry could have fielded as tankers prior to 2002. The number of heavy air tankers on federal contract would have bee a little less, perhaps 41 or 42.

As I understand it, tanker contractors contract for a certain number of tankers. So, if a tanker has to pulled off duty and out of service for longer than three days, then the contractor will be in violation of their contract. To avoid this circumstance, most if not all contractors will keep a "spare" tanker around that can be put on contract to replace a tanker that is out of service thus the contractor is in compliance with contract by supplying the contracted number of aircraft. This "spare tanker" will be an "airworthy" tanker.

edited 6:15 and 7:50 PM EDT on Aug. 3 and 2:52 PM on Aug. 4

B-17G - Memphis Belle (1999 Movie), David Tallichet - Military Aircraft Restoration Corp. Bureau # 44-83546-A

The third (of three) B-17s use as air tankers that I am writing about is a B-17, N3703G, that iwas owned by the Military Aircraft Restoration Corp in August 2011 when I first posted this article. I don't know if the name Military Aircraft Restoration Corp. is recognizable to many of you. I was interested in this particular B-17 because I knew that she was purchased by David Tallichet. Tallichet died in 2007, here is a short obituary from the LA Times (11/11/07) .

Now I knew that this particular B-17 that David Tallichet through the Military Aircraft Restoration Corp. purchased and later restored was used in the 1990 movie, Memphis Belle, see this piece of imdb Memphis Belle movie trivia. Actually, according to another piece of Memphis Belle movie trivia from imdb, she was one of two B-17s that played the Memphis Belle. But I digress.

The MARC was a nice website for the "The Movie" Memphis Belle with a short article about the history of this Fortress aircraft including her service as an air tanker, what they refer to as a water bomber. You will see  that the MARC B-17 was indeed flown as an airtanker, first by Fast Way Air as T-78 who first flew her as an air tanker in 1960; and later by TBM. She flew as an air tanker until she was purchased by MARC sometime in 1982.

As I revise this article on December 29, 2021 the restoration of the Memphis Belle was completed in 2018 and is on exhibit at The Museum of the US Air Force with good entry page for the Memphis Belle on their website which I just accessed here (with links where you can go for more information). She is going on