SEATs - Mostly about SEATs on Exclusive Use Contracts

I believe that I first became aware that there would be awarded this year (2014) when I read the March 2014 edition of AgAir Update (Marc Mullis, "Gearing up for the new season", AgAir Update, March 2014, p. F-13). Bill Gabbert of Fire Aviation announced the awards of the Exclusive Use SEAT contracts on April 28, 2014:

The National Multi-Agency Coordinating Group announced today that the Department of the Interior is funding 33 exclusive use Single Engine Air Tankers (SEATs) in 2014 as national shared resources. Historically, SEATs have been funded as primarily a local or regional resource with assigned home bases. The 2014 exclusive use SEAT fleet will not have assigned home bases. They will be treated as national shared resources similar to Large Air Tankers (LATs). Geographic area Coordination Centers (GACCs) can preposition SEATs using the same mechanisms and rationale used for other national resources DOI contracts for 33 Single Engine Air Tankers.

Bill provides a good and easy to read discussion of some of the details of the Exclusive Use Contracts including the mandatory availability period (100 days), and that no relief pilot is required. You might want to take a few moments and read his April 28th article, DOI contracts for 33 Single Engine Air Tankers.

For a few years I had been hearing about Call When Needed (CWN) SEAT contracts, and was curious about how SEAT retardant tank capacity compared under the CWN contract and the EU contract. You may recall that Type 3 SEATs have 800 gallon retardant tanks and Type 4 SEATs have smaller retardant tanks (500 to 799 gallons) (for example see my discussion on my airtanker 101 page. I had a suspicion that type 4 SEATs could be contracted under the CWN contract but I wanted to see what the contracts said. What can I say, I am a bit of a geek. That being said, I know that analyzing tanker contracts can be a bit tedious and is beyond the purpose of this blog. However, I was gambling that the particular points that I am interested would be easy to find and more or less understandable. I hope that I was right.

According to the Exclusive Use (EU) SEAT Contract (found here), SEATs under the Exclusive Use Contract are Type 3 SEATs (a Type 3 SEAT carries 800 to 1,799 gallons of retardant) and will have a retardant gate system approved by the Interagency Airtanker Board (EU SEAT Contract Sections, B2.2.1, B2.2.2; p. 11, accessed on July 10, 2014). On the otherhand, SEATs on a Call When Needed (CWN) Contract (found here) can be Type 3 SEATs or Type 4 SEATs (500 to 799 gallons of retardant). The retardant gate systems on Type 4 SEATs do not have to be certified by the Interagency Airtanker Board (CWN SEAT Contract Sections, B2.2.1, B2.2.2; p. 11, accessed on July 10, 2014).

And I found this about relief pilots in the EU and CWN SEAT contracts:

Relief Pilot not required under the EU Contract  (EU SEAT Contract Section C24.2, p. 41, Accessed on July 10, 2014) while relief pilots are required for CWN Contracts (CWN SEAT Contract Section C24.2, p. 41, accessed on July 10, 2014).

For those of you who are interested in such things, a listing of the SEATs under exclusive use contract may be found here. Finally, my entry point for accessing all of the SEAT documents that I linked to in this article (as well as lots of other information on SEATs) may be found on the BLM Fire and Aviation Single Engine Airtanker Page.