Friday Fun: Washington Army National Guard Working Wildfires in Washington

Direct link to August 5th video from VBS Defense on YouTube

I enjoyed watching this short video of the 96th Aviation Troop Command,Washington Army National Guard flying to help the wildland firefighters on the ground battle the wildfires in eastern Washington

Friday Fun: Air Tractor Music Video

Direct link to March 2007 video from Aggieman1125 on YouTube

 I saw this great video on YouTube just now, the video was done in March 2007 by aggieman1125. I hope you enjoy the video as much as I did.

Friday Fun: Airtanker History from 2010

I don't know about you, but I always enjoy learning about the history of aerial firefighting. I enjoyed this video from Airailimages about air tankers that were flying in 2010 and earlier.

Direct link to October 2023 video from Airailimages on YouTube

Friday Fun: CH-53 Helicopters working a 2024 Wildfire in Germany

For this week's Friday Fun I am sharing a video of a couple of CH-53 helicopters working a 2024 wildfire in Germany. The video that I am sharing was posted by HD108oide on YouTube. I enjoy seeing helicopters working a wildfire, and enjoyed this video. I hope that you do as well.

About Training for Aircraft Fighting Wildfires

Thanks to Coulson Aviation whom I follow on Facebook and YouTube for sharing an educational video on YouTube about training for aircraft used to fight wildfires. Yes the video is a little long at just under 25 minutes but well worth watching.

Direct link to June 21st video from Coulson Aviation on YouTube 

Aeroflite Scoopers Working a Wildfire

Two Super Scoopers working a wildfire in the United States, deployed from Pangborn.

Friday Fun: New Cal Fire C-130

 Cal Fire has a new C-130 has joined their airtanker aersonal and is or was stationed at Ramona in southern California, see this article from the County News Center for more information. While I always like to see additional airtankers deployed anywhere in the United States and elsewhere, I have family and friends in southern California so I am especially happy to know that Cal Fire's new C-130 is currently deployed at Ramona. See this page for more information about Cal Fire's C-130s.

The video that I embed below shows footage of the new C-130 and other aircraft fighting a wildfire near the Sorrento fire that is now 100 percent contained at 90 acres.

 

Direct link to June 8th video from San Diego Slackers on YouTube

 

Friday Fun: A Look Inside a Yukon Airtanker

 In the video that I am sharing below about the Yukon Airtanker, according to CBC News North, the supervisor of the airtanker program mentioned at 35 seconds is not Chris Mullen, it is Chris Boland.

Direct link to May 28th video from CBC News North on YouTube

Friday Fun: Dancing Airplanes

Direct link to video posted by Captain Bernoulli in December 2020 on YouTube

I wanted to share a funny airplane video for this week's Friday Fun. I remembered seeing the video that I shared here on YouTube awhile back and it fit the bill. I know that airplanes can not really dance in the way shown in this video, that is not the point. The point is that this video made me smile and giggle. I hope you enjoy this video

Friday Fun: Women in Aviation at Coulson Aviation

Direct link to February 2026 video from Coulson Aviation on YouTube

I think that women are playing an increasing role in fire aviation as demonstrated by the video from Coulson Aviation that they recently shared on Facebook. I am always happy to see videos and images highlighting women's role in fire aviation. I believe that Coulson may have shared this video to honor women in aviation week a few weeks ago.

Friday Fun: AeroFlite Images from Spring Aerial Firefighting Training

 It is spring and that means that the spring aerial firefighting training for new and current pilots continues. Here are some nice images from shared by AeroFlite Aerial Firefighting on their Facebook account on March 5th with some nice photos by Eric Kiehn

Friday fun: Helicopters Fighting Wildfire (Jan 23, 2026) in Western Australia

Direct link to Jan. 23rd video by Outbacktruckie on YouTube

Obtained from Google Earth on January 23rd, 2026

This is the end of summer in Australia which means that bush fire season may still be ongoing. I wanted to find a video of firefighting aircraft involved in fighting bush fires in Australia. What I found was this video of three helicopters refueling while fighting a bush fire on January 23rd near Boddington, Western Australia. What intrigued me about this video by Outbacktruckie was that he identified the three helicopters that are refueling. In addition, I got a somewhat closeup view of these helicopters while they are refueling. In the video you will see two Sikorsky UH60 helicopters (678. 679) and one Bell 214 helicopter (671). I was not able to find any information about the January 23rd bushfire near Boddington Western Australia on the Western Australia EmergencyWA website. 

Friday Fun: 10 Tanker Turns Twenty

Direct link to May 2024 video from 12News on YouTube

My memories of 10 Tanker Air Carrier go back to the early days of my blog in 2009 when I was learning about different types of airtankers and what was involved in flying wildfires. I spent many hours over e-mail and on the phone with my friend Tom Janney, a former air tanker pilot in those days. I have distinct memories of watching many videos of a 10 Tanker working wildfires. 10 Tankers do a lot of good work dropping high volumes of retardant on wildfires. Tom Janney has since passed, and I am forever grateful for all that I learned from him as well as other tanker pilots who helped me out in those days. When I first saw this video from 10 Tanker on Facebook I thought immediately of Tom Janney, thank-you Tom. I share the link to this video in your memory. Unfortunately I am not able to embed the video here, the video is a little over two minutes long, please take a couple of minutes to watch this video.

Friday Fun: A Review of Helicopters and Air Tankers Battling Wildfires

For today's Friday Fun post I am posting a short video on some of air tankers and helicopters that help wildland firefighters on the ground fight wildfires. This video focuses on aircraft used in California.

Direct link to January 2026 from the National Wildfire Tracking Team on YouTube

Friday Fun: SEAT in Action in July 2025 Flying a Fire in Washington State.

As regular followers know, as circumstances allow I do try to share what I consider fun aerial aviation videos on Friday. Fun for me means that I enjoy the video and learn something at the same time. I checked out Simon Butler Aviation on YouTube, a channel I like to check for his good aviation videos, he shares many interesting videos including but not limited to aerial firefighting. So, I checked out his Youtube Channel today and saw this eleven minute video that I am sharing with you today shot by the pilot of single-engine air tanker (SEAT), the pilot shared this video with Simon Butler Aviation. The video was shot somewhere in the vicinity of Deer Park, WA where you will see the SEAT taking off and landing. The SEAT is a scooper, and you will see the SEAT filling their tanks with water in this video. I too love this video, shot by the pilot showing their point of view, as someone who is not a pilot, I always enjoy these pilot's point of view videos. 

A heads up that you will see a couple of "commercial breaks" in the video.  

You may note the mention of the Wildland Firefighter Foundation in the description of the video, they do good work and I encourage you to check out their site.

   

  Direct link to January 2026 video from Simon Butler Aviation on YouTube 

Friday Fun: Valley Helicopters Flying in British Columbia

From Vertical Magazine, a seven minute 2024 video of a visit by a Vertical Magazine reporter to Valley Helicopters in Hope, British Columbia to look at Valley Helicopters operations and a little of their history and types of helicopters they fly and the types of missions their helicopters fly. 

Direct link to September 2024 video from Vertical Magazine on YouTube.

Friday Fun: Neptune and AeroFlite Working 2023 Kiel Fire

Direct link to September 2023 video from BlueRocketPR on YouTube

For Friday Fun I am sharing this September 2023 video of tankers from Neptune Aviation and Aero Flite Aerial Firefighting working the Kiel Fire in Wichita Falls Texas. Enjoy!

About BLM Helitack Crews

Direct link to July 2023 from the National Interagency Fire Center on YouTube

For this week's Friday Fun take a look at this seven minute video from the National Interagency Fire Center discussing what a Bureau of Land Management Helitack crew does. As the introduction to the video points out an obvious benefit is seeing beautiful country from the air. But there is a lot more. I have oodles of respect for helitack crews who are flown to wildland fires in remote areas. If the helitack helicopter has a bucket the helicopter will drop water on the fire after the helitack crew is dropped off.  Kudos to the pilots flying these helicopters and the helitack crews they fly. Just as important are all the personnel providing various support service to keep helitack crews flying.

Friday Fun: Medevac Helicopter Landing on I-81 in VA Responding to an Accident

Direct link to July 2022 video from Michael Miller on YouTube

I know that one of the important things that helicopters can do such as medevac helicopters is providing transportation to hospitals of accident victims and critically ill people, transportation that can often be quicker than ground transport. I live not far from my local hospital and when I see a helicopter flying over my house at a lower altitude there is a decent chance that the helo is transporting someone to the emergency room. The hospital has an appropriate landing pad for the helicopter. While I have not personally been an interstate while traffic was stopped so a helicopter can transport and accident victim I know that this happens. I was on I-81 about five years returning home when we diverted to local roads because of a bad accident on the interstate. As we were on local roads, thanks to our alert from AAA, I have no idea if a helicopter serviced the accident or if it was only ambulances or a combination of the two. I was glad to get off the interstate and away from the traffic.

In this July 2022 video that I shared above, the video was posted by Michael Miller, a Medevac helicopter pilot was flying out of Virginia in July 2022. I enjoyed watching this video to get an idea of what it is like to see a Medevac helicopter working an accident on an interstate. Michael does a good service flying Medevac helicopters. 

Friday Fun: MAFFS Aerial Firefighting Training

Direct link to video from the Daily-Military on YouTube

Enjoy this video of C-130 Hercules planes equipped with the Modular Airborne Firefighting System (AKA MAFFS) doing training including working with a lead plane. The footage is from the Daily-Military