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Tag: air tanker

USFS adds a DC-10 and three more CV-580s to the temporary list of air tankers

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 15 Comments on USFS adds a DC-10 and three more CV-580s to the temporary list of air tankers
Two, DC-10 air tankers
10 Tanker Air Carrier’s two DC-10 Very Large Air Tankers. Photo: 10 Tanker

The U.S. Forest Service has activated the Call When Needed contract for one of the DC-10 Very Large Air Tankers and has also called in three more air tankers from Canada, CV-580s borrowed from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. The DC-10 carries 11,600 gallons of retardant, five times more than the CV-580 which holds a maximum of 2,100 gallons.

The CV-580s are modified Convair CV-340 or CV-440 aircraft manufactured between 1947 and 1954 which have had the piston engines replaced by turbo-props.

On June 6 the USFS announced they were borrowing two CV-580s, and they have been working on the High Park fire in Colorado, reloading at the Rocky Mountain Metro Airport. Now there are a total of five CV-580s temporarily in the lower 48 states; one borrowed from the state of Alaska and four from the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. Those five plus the DC-10 which may be hired for only a short time as well, bring the total of large air tankers under the control of the USFS, counting two S-2Ts, to 17 — for now.

CAL FIRE recently reached out to the USFS and allowed the federal agency to arrange to bring on two S-2T CAL FIRE air tankers one month earlier than they would have come on duty otherwise. These two aircraft will only be used in California. An S-2T carries 1,200 gallons of retardant, 10% of the capacity of a DC-10.

To summarize the current 17 large or very large air tankers that are currently available:

  • eight P2Vs (exclusive use contract)
  • one BAe-146 (exclusive use contract)
  • five CV-580s (borrowed temporarily from Alaska & Canada)
  • one DC-10 (brought on with “Call When Needed” contract)
  • two S-2Ts (in California only, brought on 1 month early)

We talked with Rick Hatton of 10 Tanker Air Carrier who told us that one of their DC-10s, Tanker 911, will be airborne this afternoon en route to Phoenix and will be available there for fire duty tomorrow, Tuesday. Only one of their two DC-10s is on a CWN contract, since it is not economically feasible for them to have two large expensive airplanes with crews available, when there is no guarantee that either will be used. Mr. Hatton is hopeful that both will receive exclusive use contracts when the USFS’s “next-gen” contracts are announced. That announcement was expected in May.

A Call When Needed contract can fit into the business model of the owner of a helicopter nicely, if their main source of earning income is passenger transport, TV news and traffic reporting, agricultural spraying, construction, or other uses. But an air tanker is a huge investment for a piece of equipment that is single-use; dropping retardant on wildfires. If they are not used for that, they sit, earning nothing, while the pilots and mechanics may sit too, but might still be earning a salary. That can’t go on forever.

Tom Harbour’s interview about air tankers

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 5 Comments on Tom Harbour’s interview about air tankers

The Missoulian has a good article about the present state and the future of the air tanker program. The author, Rob Chaney, interviewed U.S. Forest Service Fire and Aviation Management Director Tom Harbour, and here are a couple of quotes from the article:

More than half a billion dollars worth of new firefighting airplane contracts should come through later this month, as the U.S. Forest Service heads into one of the hottest summers on record.

Although the names of contract winners won’t be announced before June 25, the news can’t come soon enough for Missoula-based Neptune Aviation. The company hopes to boost its new BAe-146 jet fleet from one plane to three, just weeks after a fatal crash in Utah reduced its Korean War-era P2V tanker fleet from eight to seven.

The five-year contracts to four vendors would bring on seven modern retardant bombers to the national firefighting air force. Three companies would provide two new planes apiece at a cost between $125.7 million and $178 million over five years. The fourth vendor would add one plane for $66.8 million.

[…]

“There’s been a lot of talk going around how there used to be over 40 large air tankers and now we have less than 10,” Snyder said. “But we know the aircraft we have today compared to the aircraft of yesteryear are a night-and-day difference. It’s just a guess, but I think you won’t need to see the number of aircraft you used to see in yesteryear.“

 
Thanks go out to Dick

Tanker base operations during the High Park fire

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , 14 Comments on Tanker base operations during the High Park fire

Tanker 42 at JEFFCO

Shane Harvey took these photos at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (JEFFCO) showing the two Convair 580 air tankers that are working the High Park Fire. In one photo you can see the smoke column as viewed from the airport, which is 48 miles away. Thanks Shane. We have more information including a map of the High Park fire HERE.

Tanker 45 at Jeffco airport 6-9-2012

High Park Fire as seen from JEFFCO airport 6-9-2012
High Park Fire (48 miles northwest) as seen from JEFFCO airport June 9, 2012

 

Organization calls aerial firefighting “immoral”

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 20 Comments on Organization calls aerial firefighting “immoral”

The same organization that forced the U.S. Forest Service to issue an Environmental Impact Statement on the use of fire retardant and sued the federal government to protect the northern spotted owl has issued a statement criticizing the use of airtankers on fires, claiming that it is “immoral.” The  Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, whose motto is “Forest Service employees and citizens working together to protect our National Forests,” argues that aerial firefighting is too dangerous and ineffective and that “retardant doesn’t save homes; proper construction and landscaping save homes.”

Here is an excerpt from the FSEEE statement written by Andy Stahl, their executive director, on Wednesday, four days after Tanker 11 crashed in Utah, killing the two pilots:

In 2002, a government-appointed Blue Ribbon Panel concluded that “The safety record of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters used in wildland fire management is unacceptable.” The report also noted “if ground firefighters had the same fatality rate [as firefighting aviators], they would have suffered more than 200 on-the-job deaths per year.” Since the Blue Ribbon report’s publication, aviation-related fatalities have gone up 50 percent compared to the three-year period preceding the panel’s report—not including this past weekend’s tragic loss of life.

Mr. Stahl makes a good point about the fatality rate being far too high. And it IS unacceptable. However his statistics are a little shaky, using only a 3-year period as a base comparison, when the annual variability in the number of fatalities can be extreme.

Using some draft statistics for airtanker crew fatalities originally compiled by Chuck Bushey, with a little of our help recently in updating them, we did our own analysis. We compared the 10 years before 2002, the year that two airtankers had in-flight wing failures and the Blue Ribbon Report was published, to the following 10-year period, and came up with different results from Mr. Stahl’s. The years 2003 through 2012 (to date) show a 24 percent reduction in airtanker crash fatalities over the pre-2002 10-year period. These numbers are based on draft data and could change.

But again, far too many fine pilots have died in airtanker crashes since 1958, including the last 10 years. The profession should not be this dangerous and the state and federal agencies need to be held responsible to provide the pilots with the best possible training, equipment, management, and dispatching so that they can perform their jobs as safely as possible. Saying it’s the contractors’ responsibility is not acceptable. I would argue that a modern aircraft is safer for this mission than one that was built for maritime patrol in the 1950s, like the P2Vs we are currently using to fly in and usually out of smoky canyons, low and slow, in mountainous terrain with challenging density altitude conditions.

Mr. Stahl does make some valid points about the state of our airtanker fleet and how fire-safe home construction and vegetation clearance are the best methods for preventing structures from burning. But here is the quote where he uses the term “immoral”:

Ten years ago, the government’s Blue Ribbon panel said the aerial firefighters’ death rate was “unacceptable.” Today, the government’s fruitless and ineffective aerial war against wildland fire can only be called immoral. Congress should stop pandering to our innate fear of fire and promote sensible fire management policies that save lives and homes.

20 fatalities in P2V air tanker crashes since 1987

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 10 Comments on 20 fatalities in P2V air tanker crashes since 1987

The tragic loss of two lives in the crash of Air Tanker 11 while suppressing a wildfire on Sunday has cast a spotlight on the air tanker program and the military surplus aircraft that make up the fleet. The aircraft that crashed this week was 57 years old. Tanker 55 that made an emergency landing the same day on partially disabled landing gear is 55 years old. Both of these aircraft were Korean war vintage P2Vs, designed for patrolling over the ocean, not diving in and out of smokey canyons.

Chuck Bushey, the past President of the International Association of Wildland Fire, has been researching and assembling records of wildland firefighter fatalities for decades. I have been comparing notes with him this week and his official count of fatal crashes of P2V air tankers is 9, resulting in 20 fatalities.

  1. 1987, (no given fire name), White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, Pilots Nathan Kolb and Woodward “Red” Miller (Tanker 07)
  2. 1990, Wynoochee Fire, Olympic National Forest, Pilots Ralph Glasgow and Stephen Bovey (Tanker 08)
  3. 1992, (ferrying between fire duty station and home airport), Dixon, Wyoming, Pilots Mark Powers and Charles Rennisonone
  4. 1994, Butler Creek Fire, Lolo National Forest, Montana, Pilots Bob Kelly and Randy Lynn (Tanker 04)
  5. 1998, Leggert Fire, Gila National Forest, New Mexico, Pilots J. D. Donahue and Chuck Key (Tanker 08)
  6. 2003, (ferrying to reposition), Lake Arrowhead, California, Pilots Carl Dolbeare and John Attardo (Tanker 99)
  7. 2008, Smitty Fire, (crashed on take-off Reno/Stead Airport), Reno, Nevada, Pilots Gene Walstrom, Gregory Gonsioroski and Zachary Vander-Griend (Tanker 09)
  8. 2009, (ferrying to reposition), Toole County, Utah, Pilots Tom Risk, Mike Flynn and Brian Buss (Tanker 42)
  9. 2012, White Rock Fire, Ely Nevada District, Bureau of Land Management, Pilots Todd Neil Tomkins and Ronnie Edwin Chambless (Tanker 11)

 Earlier we had two crashes attributed to P2V aircraft that were actually PV2 planes. 

Senator introduces bill to speed air tanker contracting

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , 13 Comments on Senator introduces bill to speed air tanker contracting

UPDATE at 9:57 a.m. MT, June 8, 2012: When we wrote this article yesterday the text of the bill was not available. Now it is and we included it below (We added the link to the solicitation):

Notwithstanding the last sentence of section 3903(d) of title 41, United States Code, the Chief of the Forest Service may award contracts pursuant to Solicitation Number AG-024B-S-11-9009 for large air tankers earlier than the end of the 30-day period beginning on the date of the notification required under the first sentence of section 3903(d) of that title.

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UPDATE at 7:46 p.m. MT, June 7, 2012: the Associated Press is reporting that the Senate passed the bill today. The U.S. Forest Service told Congress that they have made a decision about new air tanker contracts but have to wait until late June to award them. It is very surprising a body of Congress can pass this bill three days after it was introduced. The bill now goes over to the House of Representatives.

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Senators Ron Wyden of Oregon and Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico introduced a bill on June 4 that would speed the contracting of air tankers. Currently there is a requirement that Congress be notified 30 days before certain contracts are awarded. This bill, S. 3261, would partially waive that requirement, making it possible for the U.S. Forest Service to issue federal contracts for at least seven large air tankers before the end of that 30-day period.

Below is video of Senator Wyden speaking on the Senate floor on June 5, in which he addresses the Tanker 11 fatalities, the crash of Tanker 55, the shortage of air tankers, and the bill he just introduced. The text of his remarks as prepared can be found HERE.

If Senator Wyden’s legislative record during this term in the Senate is any indication, it is unlikely the bill will be passed. He has sponsored 73 bills, none of which were made into law. Of the 209 bills he co-sponsored, one became law.

Some would say the U.S. Forest Service’s Fire and Aviation Management staff, instead of looking for ways to speed up the air tanker contracting process, is instead, searching desperately for ways to slow the process to a crawl, so they don’t have to actually make a decision.

Colorado Senator Mark Udall has been vocal on the issues of bark beetles and air tankers, and on April 12 wrote a letter to Chief of the U.S. Forest Service Tom Tidwell expressing his concerns about the state of the aging fleet of air tankers. In the letter he said:

Though air tankers are only one part of the wildfire-response effort, they play a critical role in the initial attack. With an aging fleet that has dwindled from 44 air tankers in 2002 to 11 this year, and will continue to decline in the years to come, I am unconvinced the USFS’s current air tanker fleet is prepared to adequately address an immense wildfire or even what is sure to be a long fire season…

Talk is cheap. Introducing a bill, asking questions, or writing a letter, is easy, but turning it into action is another story. Several Senators talk tough in hearings about the air tanker fiasco, but they don’t pass bills funding any changes that would benefit the program. Other Senators that have questioned the U.S. Forest Service’s management of the air tanker program include Jon Kyl, AZ; Lisa Murkowski, AK; Jeff Bingaman, NM; Ron Wyden, OR; Mark Udall, CO; Jon Tester, MT; and Dianne Feinstein, CA.

The only way the air tanker program will see any long term meaningful changes will be if Congress forces it upon the U.S. Forest Service. These Senators should know that talking tough, issuing press releases, and writing letters to Tom Tidwell is not adequate. A successful strategy in wars and for initial attack on wildfires is overwhelming force. That is what it will take in this case.