Tailwinds and blue skies are toasted today in the direction of another longtime Fire Aviation personality, Hugh Carson, who was an Air Operations Branch Director and served as the BLM’s State Aviation Manager for Utah and Nevada. Carson, who died recently, was also the Aviation Training Developer for the BLM at NIFC, and was famous for ordering ping pong balls delivered in quantity to fire camps in the West.
Hugh Carson was possibly more famous for his personality than he was for his career oeuvre — the Interagency Helicopter Operations Guide (IHOG). In retirement he was also a popular DJ with KVNF Mountain Grown Public Radio out of Paonia, Colorado, and left countless music listening fans saddened by his loss.
https://fireaviation.com/2013/01/30/12-questions-for-hugh-carson
Bill Gabbert back in 2013 ran one of his series of “12 Questions” profiles on Carson, who was instrumental in developing the Interagency Airspace Coordination Guide [PDF] — working on a related project in 1999 was when I first ran onto Hugh, who explained to me why he was known as “Hurricane.”
He’ll surely be missed.