Washington State NR Helitack

A few weeks ago, Washington Helitack Program under
the Washington DNR Fire and Aviation Program first came on my radar. At that time, I was involved with some other articles on this blog, but knew that I had to write an article Washington Helitack with links where you can read more about this helitack program. 

I understand that the Washington DNR has been using helicopters since sometime in the 1960s, and currently has five Huey Helicopters flying firefighting crews to fires. The Hueys are also equipped with bambi buckets. If you go to the Washington DNR Fire and; Aviation Page, you will see that:

DNR helicopters provide direct aviation support for initial attack, wildfire suppression operations on DNR-protected lands. If there is a need for extended attack and large fire support, assignments are on a case-by-case basis.

The Fire Aviation Crew is an elite firefighting team consisting of pilots, managers, support truck drivers, and firefighters. Currently, the program staffs 5-6 initial attack helicopters on a daily basis. Crews are available for dispatch throughout all of Washington State. Aircraft are off the ground and en route to the fire within five minutes of dispatch.

There are a couple of short pdf files that you can download and find out more about the Washington DNR helicopters, an about us document and a short history of the Washington DNR Fire and Aviation Program (with some photos of helos going back to the 1960s).

There is a nice flickr page of photos of the 2012 helitack training,. Here is an article on the 2012 Helitack training with a couple links for news coverage on the training. The Daily Sun News had a nice article (from 2010) where you can learn a little more about what is involved in helitack training.
For photos of the Washington Helitack crew, check out this flickr page. Finally, I found another nice article from the Yakima Herald, this one also from 2010, about helitack.

The video that I embedded above is from the 2005 season, you might want to check out the description of that video on this youtube page.

Thank-you Northern Forest Fire Protection Compact

Over the course of the last three plus years since I began writing about aerial wildland fire fighting on this blog I have seen resource sharing of wildland fire crews, equipment, aircraft and the like between States (in the U.S.) and between countries. For example, as I have mentioned on quite a few times here on this blog, our friends in Canada have helped us in the U.S. by supplying firefighting aircraft over the past year.

I know that there are some regional compacts where member states and/or provinces agree to share firefighting resources. In the summer of 2008 I first learned that New Jersey is a member Mid-Atlantic Interstate Forest Fire Protection Compact from someone from the NJ Forest Fire Service (NJFFS) who was manning a NJFFS table at a county fair. He told me that the member states of the Mid-Atlantic Compact (NJ, PA, WV, DE, OH, VA, MD) have an agreement share resources when called upon by a member state needing help to fight a wildfire.

There are other regional compacts.

I am here today to say a few words about the Northeast Forest Fire Protection Compact, founded in 1949. Over the course of last three plus years you have seen me write about or say thank-you to the NJFFS for all that they do to protect us in NJ as they fight wildland fires. My gratitude, as appropriate will include a thank-you to my friends in the Mid-Atlantic compact. However, I do not only have an interest in New Jersey. My family has owned seasonal property in northeastern Vermont for many years. I have never said thank-you to the Vermont Division of Forestry who work to protect all in Vermont from wildland fires. To be honest, I only found about the Northeastern Forest Fire Protection Compact (NFFPC) relatively recently. I want to take this opportunity to thank the NFFPC as well

I learned that the NFFPC was formed in 1949 after the 1947 fires devastated portions of New England, I mentioned the 1947 fires in my July 25th article along with current statistics from the Vermont Division of Forestry.

As I learned about the world about wildland firefighting and aerial wildland firefighting through my work on this blog for three plus years, I felt that my friends in Canada and in adjoining states would help Vermont out should they have a major wildland fire that stretched municipal as well as Vermont State wildland firefighting resources. I breathed a sigh of relief when I found out who the NFFPC members are:

• New England States (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island),
• New York,
• Four Canadian Provinces (Quebec, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia), and
• Three National Forests (White Mountains, Green Mountain, and Finger Lakes),
•  The U.S. National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are represented in the compact.

I'd like to quote a sentence from the NFFPC history page explaining the importance of the compact:

... since major fires occur infrequently, it is difficult for any single state or province to economically justify and maintain the training, equipment, and personnel needed.

You will get a better idea of how the compact works by check out the NFFPC compact mandate. I'll quote one sentence from the compact mandate:

The mandate of the Northeastern Forest Fire Protection Commission (NFFPC) is to provide the means for its member states and provinces to cope with fires that might be beyond the capabilities of a single member through information, technology and resource sharing (mutual aid) activities.

I suspect that other regional compacts work the same way. My point here is to say that as someone who has spent a lot of time in the northeastern corner of Vermont, I am reassured to know in the unlikely event that a major wildland fire happens in my little corner of VT (and elsewhere in the compact), that the members of the compact will come to help us. Quebec is not all that far from northeastern VT for example. And I am pretty certain that the stateside members of the compact helped Quebec during the large wildland fires that they saw in the summer of 2010. So we help each other.

The compact shares firefighting resources, ground crews, ground equipment, and aerial resources.

Thank-you all who are in the NFFPC. Thank-you for the knowledge that my families property and the adjoining forests, residences, businesses, farms, etc. are in good hands should their be a major wildland fire that stretches the resources of my friends at the Vermont Division of Forestry.

As I learn more about the members States and Provinces in the NFFPC, I'll write about it here. Likewise, know that I know that Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and New Brunswick are members of the NFFPC, I'll try to post about their major wildfires that come across my desk.

Vermont - wildfires?

I was in Vermont recently for several days, I'm back now. When I was in Vermont, I heard about a small wildfire (about 20 acres) that burned in or near the Groton State Forest in Caledonia County Vermont. I don't quite recall where I first heard about the fire, perhaps it was in a newspaper that I picked up. In any event WCAX TV reported on the fire on July 10, as did the Burlington Free Press.

Sometime after I began to write about aerial wild land firefighting and because I have been going to one particular corner in northeastern Vermont during the summer for more years than I can remember, I got curious about wildfires in Vermont. As I have done on previous occasions, I visited the forest fire control webpage of the VT Division of Forestry and downloaded a copy of their 2010 Fire Statistics (I believe that this is an MS word document).

According to the 2010 Vermont Fire Statistics Report, there were 88 fires in 2010, burning 83.83 acres. Of the 88 fires, 87 were attributed to human causes. The ten-year averages are interesting: 119.4 fires and 215.37 acres burned. Over the ten-year period (2001-2010), 2005 was the peak fire year with 221 fires burning 597.14 acres. This short report also breaks down fires by county for 2006 to 2010 and gives rainfall data for the 7-month 2010 fire season (March 1 through October 31) for four five locations: Brighton (Nulhegan) -- 33.70 in.; Elmore -- 36.91 in.; Essex -- 33.92 in.; Danbly -- 35.01 in.; and Marlboro -- 35.68 in.

I summarized this report for you because it spoke to what had been my sense over the years that wildland fires in Vermont are often small. Of course, I knew that my sense of things could be wrong, which is why I wanted to get some numbers from the Vermont Division of Forestry.

I need to emphasize, that I only had access to fire statistics from the VT Division of Forestry for a ten-year period (2001-2010). The 2011 reports are not available, and I have not yet been able to find any "data" for Vermont wildfires before 2001. So far, the best that I can come up with is from the Vermont Division of Forestry's Timeline of Forestry in Vermont referencing a 5,000 acre wildfire in 1903 and 106 wildfires in 1908 that burned 16,000 acres (no specifics provided).  I have gotten curious about Vermont's wildfire history and I'll keep looking around as time allows. If I find anything, I'll report back here.

I do know that there were large wildfires in 1947 in northern New England, specifically in Maine, including but not limited to Acadia National Park. New Hampshire also saw wildfires in 1947. I don't know if Vermont experienced wildfires in 1947.

I found a reference for New Hampshire on webpage from the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, an article called Fire On the Mountain. The article itself seemed to be undated, but I did some digging on Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests' Forest Journal webpage, found here, finding a dated reference. I scrolled down to July 2008, and saw that the Fire on the Mountain article is dated July 6, 2008. In the section on fire history in the article, they refer to Goshen, Claremont, Goshen and Sunapee, all these places are in NH. In addition, the Fire on the Mountain article references a a 1941 fire in Marlow NH.

Unless something comes up between now and Friday (July 27), I'll offer some reflections on the Northeastern Forest Fire Protection Compact and what this regional compact means to me as a seasonal property owner in northeastern Vermont.

Myrtle Fire (S.D.)

As I was writing recently about my trip to California where I visited Ramona AAB, the Midway, and the San Diego Air and Space Museum, I was following Bill Gabbert's ( on Wildfire Today ) reporting last week on the Myrtle fire (S.D.). Bill posted a nice video compilation of photos that he took of retardant drops by Neptune's tanker 7 on July 20 that I have embedded here. Towards the end of the video you will see that T-07 appears to be flying behind some trees. Bill commented about this:

 ... it exited the area safely and went back to Rapid City for the night

Some of you may have already seen some of the photos that Bill took of the fire. If you have not, you might want to go and take a look, July 22 photos of burn operations, and July 22 photos of air tankers reloading.

Bill, great video and photos!

According to the last report on the Myrtle Fire (accessed at 5:57 PM EDT on July 23, 2012) from inciweb the fire has burned 10,080 acres and is 40% contained.

San Diego Air and Space Museum

Another thing on my must do list while I was in San Diego was a visit to the San Diego Air and Space Museum (SASM) in Balboa Park in San Diego. I spent about five hours there and I could have spent more time there. Those of you who are aviation buffs and have a chance to be in San Diego have to put this on your must see list. Balboa Park is beautiful as well, but I had to make a choice, the Air and Space Museum or the park. But I did get a brief tour around the park on the bus I took to the Museum

I feel like whatever I say about the museum will be wholly inadequate. So, I'll give you a taste by showing you some photos of some my favorite SASM airplanes.

When I walked in I saw a very nice replica of The Spirit of St. Louis flown by Charles Lindbergh on his famous flight to Paris. As most of you know, the original was built by Ryan Aircraft in San Diego. The replica was also built in San Diego.

There were many aircraft that were built in San Diego, several by Ryan Aircraft. I loved the Ryan M-1.

The Ford Trimotor 5-AT has  special place in my heart. Not only because I have read about her in some of my aviation books, but because I have a small model Ford Tri Motor on my living room table.

Consolidated PBY-5A Catalina. I've been reading about this aircraft recently. I believe that  the one at the museum is sometimes referred to as a Canso (because of the wheels).

North American Aviation P-51D Mustang, our little friends who flew escort missions on bombing runs in WW II providing cover for the B-17 and B-24 bombers.

And finally the F4U Corsair. A great story because she was in Alabama when Katrina hit and was badly damaged. She was lovingly restored by the wonderful folk at the SASM. What a labor of love. Here are some photos of Corsair restoration. I understand that she was just recently put on display.

When I was at the SASM, they had a great special exhibit exhibit called How Things Fly covering four topics or zones: aerodynamics, propulsion, meteorology, and air traffic control. I saw this exhibit at the end of my visit, I could of easily spent a couple of hours in this special exhibit hall. The How Things Fly exhibit is on display for a limited time. The SASM had this video on How Things Fly on their webpage.

U.S.S. Midway (pt. 2)

I continue with the last set of photos that I took at the U.S.S. Midway while I was in San Diego a few weeks ago.

The aircraft in these photos are (hopefully in order):

F-14 Tomcat
F-4 Phantom II
F9F Panther Fighter
The Midway Phantom
H-34 Seabat
SH-3 Sea King
CH-46 Sea Knight
UH-1 Huey Gunship
HUP Retriever
E-2 Hawkeye Airborne Early Warning

U.S.S. Midway (Pt 1)

The U.S.S. Midway is docked in San Diego as a permanent museum, a mile or so from the hotel where I stayed while I was in San Diego. I was having knee trouble that day, in fact I had been having knee trouble for a couple of days, so I had to cut my visit too short. But I did take about an hour to walk around and visit the airplanes. I am posting these photos in two parts, with Part 2 posting on July 18.

The planes you will see in the photos in part 1 are (hopefully in order):

F4U Corsair
Midways most Famous Landing
SBD Dauntless
TBM Avenger
SNJ Pilot Trainer
A-1 Sky Raider Attack
RA-5 Vigilante Recon
A-4 Skyhawk Attack
EKA-3 Skywarrior

CAL FIRE Ramona Air Attack Base up close and personal

The top item on my to do list while I was in the San Diego area a few weeks ago was to visit the Ramona Air Attack Base. I drove inland (east) for about an hour to get to Ramona, a very pleasant drive. The coast where I was staying was cloudy, but when I got to Ramona, the cloud deck had lifted and it was a beautiful southern CA day, sunny with temps about 70. I found the viewing area and sat for about 5 minutes looking at the field. The two S2-Ts and the OV-10 Air Attack were sitting on the ramp.

I wanted to get closer, and I heard from a few reliable sources that they will give visitors like me a tour if they are not busy. And the were not busy. So, I went to the main gate with my cell phone and dialed the number on the sign telling them who I was, asking if I could come in and take some photos for my blog. The base manager came out and let me in, a very nice woman. She was so kind and welcoming. She let me take all the photos I wanted. The result are the photos that I am sharing with you here.

Air Attack 330 (OV-10)

Air Attack 330 (OV-10)

Air Attack 330 (OV-10)

T-70 (Grumman S2-T)

T-70 (Grumman S2-T)

S2-T tanker belly -- retardant doors are closed

S2-T tanker retardant loading valve

T-71 (Grumman S2-T)

T-70 (Grumman S2-T)

One of the S2-T tankers at Ramona AAB

One of the S2-T tankers at Ramona AAB

T-71 (Grumman S2-T)

T-71 (Grumman S2-T)

Thunderstorm clouds aka cumulonimbus from the air

When I was flying across the U.S. on United a few weeks back I had the opportunity to see not one, but two cumulonimbus (thunder storm) clouds from the air. I am certain that we were at a safe distance from both of these cloud formations, flying at an altitude of 36,000 ft.

What happened was either the captain or the first-officer made an announcement that they were asking us to stay seated with our seat belts fastened as we passed between two areas of thunderstorms. It is hard to tell distance in the air, at least it is for this novice. But I am certain that we were at a safe distance of at least 25 km from each area of thunderstorms. They were quite impressive and a little scary as we could not see the tops of either cumulonimbus. In a matter of minutes we were clear of the worst of the cumulonimbus, and there was little if any turbulence. Or at least little turbulence that I felt. None the less, I was glad to be clear of them.

As many of you know, cumulus clouds often, but not always develop into much more dangerous cumulonimbus clouds.

The National Weather Service's JetStream - Online School for Weather has an excellent lesson on thunderstorms where those of you who are so inclined can go and learn more about thunderstorms. For some great photos of cumulonimbus, there are some nice photos on the S'COOL On-Line cloud chart of cumulonimbus clouds.

Finally, I thought you might enjoy a video called Day of the Cumulonimbus. You will have to follow the link to watch the video as the person who posted the video to youtube did not enable embedding. The video is about five minutes long and I think that you will enjoy it.

Listening in on cockpit communications on a recent airline flight

I had occasion to go to southern California for a few days awhile back, flying on United. I have written before on this blog about some of my scenic flights thanks to some wonderful pilots at one of the local general aviation airports. I had a different sort of experience on this particular flight across the U.S. I had the opportunity to listen in on the cockpit crew communications with Air Traffic Control (ATC) as we flew across country.

On my flight, as is the case with many other flights I have taken, there are a number of audio channels available to the passengers to listen to during the flight through supplied headsets. Or you can, as I did, use your own ear phones. On certain United flights, one of these channels is devoted to cockpit communications. The caveat here is that it depends on available technology in the aircraft and the Captain has the option to not turn on the cockpit communication channel.

Before going any further, not every airline offers a cockpit communication channel for their passengers. I'm not exactly a frequent commercial airline flier. For all I know United is the airline that has this capability.

It is not my intention to write about the ins and outs of these communications between commercial airline cockpit crews and Air Traffic Control. Rather, the point that I want to make is that listening in on these communications was an excellent learning opportunity. So,I'll try to keep it simple, but I do want say that there were different types of controllers that the cockpit crew talked to. To that end, for purposes of this article only, I'll break out the sequence of controllers that the cockpit crew talked to as:

departing airport tower --> departure --> enroute --> approach --> arriving airport tower

I plugged in my earphones and listened to the cockpit communication channel for most of the flight. By the time the captain turned on the cockpit communication channel, they were no longer talking to the departing airport tower. I may have heard a couple of minutes of communications with departure controllers. For most of the 5 hours plus that I listened to cockpit communications, the cockpit crew was talking to a large number of different enroute controllers at different Centers as we flew across the U.S.

I heard communications between my cockpit crew and enroute controllers, but I also heard communications between other airliners and enroute controllers. I knew from local weather forecasts that there was line of thunderstorms to our west as we took off that afternoon. It was a long line of thunderstorms, so I was not surprised when one of the pilot's told the passengers that we had take a slightly longer route that day. We flew south before flying west.

Back to the cockpit communications, for the first hour or so of our flight, much of the communications that I heard was about this line of thunderstorms. Sometimes the controller would tell an airliner to make a diversion to avoid the thunderstorms. At other times a pilot would ask the controller for permission to divert from their assigned course in order to avoid a thunderstorm, in most cases the controller granted permission.

I could identify our flight because the airline and flight number is always the first thing you hear, whether it be from the crew or the controller. Having spent some time listening to similar communications using internet streaming available through websites such as live ATC, so it was easier for me to follow along. My time in ground school helped also as I was familiar with most of the terminology.

As I said, I had a great time listening to these communications and I learned a lot. I made a point to thank the co-pilot when I exited the jet at the end of the flight. Just so you know, my return flight was also on United and the cockpit communication channel was not available.

Next up: thunderstorm clouds aka cumulonimbus from the air

Upcoming posts

Over the next couple of weeks I am going to be writing a series of about six articles out of a recent trip I took to the San Diego CA area.

July 9: reflections on a commercial flight across the U.S.

July 11: cumulonimbus clouds from the air

July 13: a visit to Ramona AAB (CAL FIRE)

July 16: U.S.S. Midway (1 of 2)

July 18: U.S.S. Midway (2 of 2)
July 20: San Diego Air and Space Museum

Enjoy!

A tribute to the 145 Airlift Wing of the NC ANG and MAFFS 7

A tribute to the 145th Airlift Wing and the 156th Airlift Squadron; NC citizen soldiers fighting fires.

Air France 447: Final Report is out

The French authorities have released a very detailed final report of the crash of flight 447. You may recall that this flight went down off the coast of South America about three years ago. For those of you who might want to start with a short summary, there is a five-age summary found in the press briefing here. The full report with about 11 appendices plus may be found on this webpage.

Happy fourth of July (a day late)

I hope that everyone in America had a wonderful and safe Fourth of July holiday yesterday.

Power coming back after 6/29 Derecho

I can't speak for other areas that were affected by the June 29-30 Derecho that impacted a large swath of the mid-atlantic including South Jersey, but New Jersey utilities, helped by out of state crews, are making progress. If I recall, there were more than 200,000 outages last Saturday. I saw this report on MyFox29 out of Philadelphia that the number of outages is down to 16,000 as of early in the morning on July 5.

My friends at Downstown lost power at the airport (28N) which was restored later in the day on July 2. They only lost one day of flying. You see, their fuel trucks were full of fuel, so even without electricity they were able to keep flying, conducting various aerial application runs. It seems that they only lost one day, last Saturday. They were caught up by the time the July 4th holiday rolled around.

C-130 MAFFS crash -- fatalities identified

obtained from http://www.145aw.ang.af.mil/photos/mediagallery.asp?galleryID=9184 on 3 July, 2012

The 145th Airlift Wing of the North Carolina Air National Guard issued a press release a short time ago with the names of those who died in the July 1 crash of a C-130 MAFFS that was working the White Draw Fire near Edgemont S.D.

The names of the two crew members who remain hospitalized in critical condition are being withheld. My prayers for your recovery continue.

Those who died are:

Lt. Col. Paul K. Mikeal (pronounced like "Michael"), 42, of Mooresville, N.C.
Maj. Joseph M. McCormick, 36, of Belmont, N.C.
Maj. Ryan S. David (pronounced da-veed), 35, of Boone, N.C.
Senior Master Sgt. Robert S. Cannon, 50, of Charlotte, N.C.

May you and your C-130 fly in favorable tail winds in clear skies. My prayers continue for you family, friends, comrades from current and past military outfits, and all who love you.

A brief bio of each of the deceased are in the press release from the 145th Airlift Wing of the No Carolina ANG.

I know that photo above is one of the C-130 MAFFS of the 145th Airlift Wing of the North Carolina Air National Guard. I am not certain if it is the accident C-130.

C-130 MAFFS resume flying today

After a one day stand down following the crash of a MAFFS C-130 on July 1, the C-130 MAFFS have resumed operations today. For more information:

U.S. Northern Command July 3, press release

C-130 MAFFS crashed fighting White Draw Fire (SD)

It is with deep sadness that I have to write on another tanker crash, with fatalities. At about 6:30 PM on July 1, a C-130 MAFFS (Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System) from the North Carolina Air National Guard's 145th Airlift Wing crashed while fighting the White Draw Fire near the town of Edgemont, SD.

According to today's report on the crash from the United States Northern Command, there were survivors. No further details are being provided about the status of those injured nor have the names of those who died been released from official sources pending notification of the families. The crash is under investigation. The report from the U.S. Northern Command goes onto to say that

as a prudent measure, the MAFFS-equipped C-130s are on an operational hold at the present time.

The 145th Airlift Wing is based at Charlotte-Douglas International Airport.

My thoughts and prayers go out to those injured, and for your family and friends.

For those who died, I extend my prayers to your family, friends, and all who love you.

Finally, I offer my thoughts and prayers to the North Carolina Air National Guard's 145 Airlift Wing.

For those of you who are interested in reading about MAFFS, the U.S. Northern Command provided a link to a MAFFS Fact Sheet.