Lessons learned from an air tanker pilot during 40-year career

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This video is from the new MyFireVideos.net site administered by the Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center. They describe the video this way:

Lessons Learned from Air Tanker Pilot Bill Waldman

For 40 eventful years, chief pilot Bill Waldman supported wildland fire suppression activities by making more than 13,000 retardant drops on fires in practically every state in this country, including Alaska, Canada, and Mexico. In this interview, Captain Waldman shares valuable insights gained from his extensive career—and provides priceless advice to pilots just beginning theirs’.

We appreciate Mr. Waldman sharing some of the things he has learned. Many of them can be translated to fire suppression on the ground as well as in the air.

UPDATE 7:20 p.m. MT, Oct. 15

There is something odd going on with the code for the video which was causing a problem on our site. It is being removed temporarily. In the meantime, you can view it at MyFireVideos.net

 

 

via @FireInfoGirl

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About Bill Gabbert

Wildland fire has been a major part of Bill Gabbert’s life for several decades. After growing up in the south, he migrated to southern California where he lived for 20 years, working as a wildland firefighter. Later he took his affinity for firefighting to Indiana and eventually the Black Hills of South Dakota where he was the Fire Management Officer for a group of seven national parks. Today he is the creator and owner of WildfireToday.com and Sagacity Wildfire Services and serves as an expert witness in wildland fire. If you are interested in wildland fire, welcome… grab a cup of coffee and put your feet up. Google+

5 thoughts on “Lessons learned from an air tanker pilot during 40-year career”

  1. Goodlordamighty, DO ALL THE VIDEOS ON THEIR SITE LOOK THIS ICKY???????cripes. Waldman is a helluva pilot and an awesome human being, but why is the video so distorted and stretched out like that? (sorry, but the last time I saw Waldman and one of the AeroUnion tankers, neither of them were 300 yards long!!!) The last time I looked at a P-3 or Bill Waldman’s face, they weren’t stretched like play-doh. Does the govt (lessons learned) website do this for some kind of "artistic" effect? oyyy. I know you’re just embedding the video on your site, but still ….OUCH.

  2. Hmmmm. I just viewed the video in three different browsers and did not notice any distortion. Anyone else see the problem that Kelly observed?UPDATE: I used a PC running Vista, and viewed the video with no detected distortion on the following browsers: Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Chrome.

  3. Bill, thanks for posting a link to this wonderful video. I use a Mac. I had trouble calling up the video using firefox, this happens sometimes. I want bore you with the technical details. However, I was able to view the video with Safari. No distortion.

  4. As far as watching the video of Waldman above, I found that if you right click on the video screen AFTER the video starts, choose ZOOM and click on FULL SCREEN, if looks way better. I don’t know if this works on all computer programs, but I had good luck with it. It is a very good video and I wish that more tanker pilots would think about taking the time to do the same as Bill. I know it would have made a difference when I came up through the ranks of tanker flying. In the early days, as Bill stated, you were on your own and often had to push your limits and prove yourself or you were removed from the program pronto. Operators had no time or money to train crews. It is a different business now and a much safer one too, thanks to the hard work by pilots like Bill Waldman.

  5. I had the honor of flying on numerous fires with Bill over the years, he was always a true pro. I have integrated this video into our companies SEAT pilot training program. No problems viewing it on Vista