Kruger Fire (in red) 3-D map, approximate location. Looking north.
(Note from Bill: Bean Barrett, a frequent contributor to Fire Aviation, spent a career in U.S. Naval Aviation as a fighter pilot and served on the Navy Staff as a program sponsor responsible for planning, programming, and budgeting. He was also a Naval Aviation Safety Officer trained in mishap investigation. Here are some of his thoughts about the fatal crash of the AT-802 single engine air tanker on the Kruger Fire July 25, 2021.)
A blinding flash of the obvious to an old Naval aviator.
Having been in the business of personally flying and ordering flights in marginal conditions over my flying career, I offer the following observation derived from thinking about the mishap involving the SEAT at the Kruger Fire: This mission represented a near first for fire aviation in a very difficult environment. There is little community experience to bolster command and operational decisions by IC’s and pilots operating in this environment.
From personal experience, flying in extraordinarily bad conditions at night at sea is only possible to undertake and successfully accomplish because there are thousands of hours and sorties worth of community experience that helps those responsible know when and where to draw the line.
In this case, regardless of the NTSB/FAA mishap findings, without a significant background of fire aviation community experience to draw on for a particular situation or environment, it is always best to operate conservatively and approach any new environment in steps, never do the hardest one first if at all possible.
I would hope that the mishap SEAT flight was the culmination of a “work up” from simple to complex tasking and flying over hundreds of hours of use of night vision goggles and night drops with the aircraft.
This underscores the requirement for the fire aviation community to develop/ expand standard training and operations procedures both for general ops and by specific aircraft type and mission. If everyone trains and operates to the same standards, community experience is more relevant, experience can be accumulated and shared, procedures modified and improved, and training requirements adjusted resulting in improved flight safety and operations.
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How many folks in the IMT/ IC business are aware of the AT-802 flight safety record when they order a SEAT?
Over four mishaps a year since May, 1997. This should have set off alarm bells a very long time ago except there isn’t any agency “keeping score” for type aircraft mishap rate and mishap cause that then ties the information and “lessons learned” back to mandated changes in training, maintenance, and ops procedures. It is very apparent from looking over the reference that the mishap rate is unacceptable and it isn’t getting any better.
Absent mandated standardized training, maintenance, and operations procedures for the AT-802 (and all other fire aviation aircraft), unacceptable mishap rates will continue. Since the US government is the largest contracting organization, it would seem logical to mandate a comprehensive Federal standardization program for AT-802 SEAT’s and other fire aviation aircraft that will operate under government contract.
To expect a loose confederacy of contract aviation companies to cooperatively develop a program is wishful thinking.
Some may say that such a Federal program already exists but my reply would be “where is the dash 1 or NATOPS flight manual for each type of aircraft, how is it revised, and what single agency is responsible for the manuals, standardized training, standardized operations, and standardized maintenance?” It is obvious that today’s chop suey of regulatory agencies, regulations, requirements, and instructions is not working for fire aviation.
There will be complaints about the additional cost to institute a consolidated comprehensive standardization program that will save fire aviation lives, aircraft, and improve effectiveness but my answer would be … the option of continuing with business as usual is obviously unacceptable.
Until fire aviation has a comprehensive aviation program as good as the US military aviation programs, we can expect little change in the fire fviation mishap rates or in operational effectiveness.
Calwood Fire northwest of Boulder, Colorado, Oct. 17, 2020. Photo by Ben Nelson, Envision Studio, Boulder, Colorado.
(Note from Bill: I asked Bean Barrett, a former Naval Aviator and frequent contributing writer on Fire Aviation, for his thoughts about the Aerial Firefighting Use and Effectiveness study that was conducted by the U.S. Forest Service during a nine-year period at an annual cost of $1.3 million. The AFUE had very ambitious goals initially when Tom Harbour was the Director of Fire and Aviation for the U.S. Forest Service. “AFUE was initially intended to eventually help answer questions about the size and composition of aviation assets needed by the USFS,” Mr. Harbour told Fire Aviation recently. Bean’s comments are below. It begins with the Government Accountability Office’s request to the USFS to justify spending about half a billion dollars a year for aerial firefighting programs. That was one of the reasons for conducting the study.)
What the Government Accountability Office recommended :
Expand efforts to collect information on aircraft performance and effectiveness to include all types of firefighting aircraft in the federal fleet.
Enhance collaboration between the agencies and with stakeholders in the fire aviation community to help ensure that Agency efforts to identify the number and type of firefighting aircraft they need reflect the input of all stakeholders in the fire aviation community.
Subsequent to the completion of the first two recommendations, update the agency’s strategy documents for providing a national firefighting aircraft fleet to include analysis based on information on aircraft performance and effectiveness and to reflect input from stakeholders throughout the fire aviation community.
The AFUE study says it provide “…empirical information addressing the three GAO recommendations…”
From a program management perspective, enough information is required to inform decisions on inventory objectives, inventory types, and to allow costing out various aircraft and contract options.
At a higher level, when dealing at the programmatic and budget levels, it is necessary to first clearly demonstrate the value of aircraft vs ground crews and equipment or the appropriate mix of aircraft, ground crews, and equipment. One departmental budget buys all. When the value of aircraft can be demonstrated empirically, the desired mix of air and ground capability can be decided. Then, aircraft inventory objectives by type can be determined. AFUE picks up at this point and I’m not sure the larger case for air has been made. We cannot answer the question … In general, how much more efficient are our firefighting efforts when ground crews are augmented with air tanker support?
With respect to GAQ tasking, AFUE has only taken a partial first step in addressing and providing the necessary information for GAO recommendation #1. There is not enough information to determine desired inventory objective, type and mix of types, and cost. I’m not sure it is presented in a form to allow conclusions to be made. As the information was collected across the various LMA’s it does comply with #2. Without fully accomplishing task #1, updating strategy documents is not possible #3.
The Performance definition utilizes two metrics. Interaction percentage [IP] and probability of success [POS]. The definition of those two performance measurements and how they relate to GAO’s recommendation to collect information on “Performance” and Effectiveness” is not clear. I’m not sure Performance and Effectiveness by type aircraft can be adequately determined.
This study is perhaps being too clever by half when it introduces new terms to analyze.
What constitutes satisfactory interaction in Interaction Percentage [IP]? Probability of Success [POS] seems to be conflated with “effectiveness”. What constitutes success? What constitutes “effective”?
Some questions:
If “Each drop was analyzed on the basis of objective and outcome” with respect to use statistics, was the air asset chosen by the IMT or was it used because it was all that was available? If it was a beggars can’t be choosers tasking situation, some of the aircraft-mission paring data might be questioned.
We may have a better idea of what groups of aircraft are tasked for which missions but not why a particular group is being chosen/used. The statistics clearly show helos flying over 80% of the missions. Is that a reflection of IMT choice, the practicality of using what was available, the preponderance of water as a payload, or perhaps it is related to the ratio of small fires to large fires? There is insufficient information to determine why helos flew over 80% of the sorties.
How much of IP and POS was a function of drop accuracy? Which aircraft were the most accurate? What missions are more accuracy dependent?
How much of the IP and POS statistics are more dependent on payload than aircraft type?
Fire is the target. It is why aircraft are flying. Is classification of fire into IA, EA, and Large as defined in the study sufficient to sort aircraft assignment and results by type? EA appears to be a small gap filler between IA and Large Fire.
Why are there no time dependent metrics? From a program analysis perspective, many aircraft distinguishing characteristics are time related. Speed, range, endurance, reload-return, and IA response come to mind.
If this were a commercial airline study, I would expect to see some “bottom line” characteristic similar to Revenue/Seat-Mile. Why isn’t there something like cost/payload gallon-mile/hr for air tankers?
From a commercial and military perspective, it is more about payload delivered and what it takes to get it there. Aircraft are mission dependent variables. Why wasn’t the AFUE study based on mission requirements? What payload needed to be delivered, what quantity, what coverage level, how fast, how accurately, and for how long? Given something like these parameters, the number and type of aircraft can be determined.
A problem?
Figure 10. With LAT’s approximately 45% of drops have a positive outcome. For VLAT’s 50%.
Figure 10, Drop Outcomes, AFUE.
Figure 13. LATs have a 67-68% Probability of Success. VLATs have a 70% Probability of Success.
Figure 13, Probability of Success, AFUE
Someone smarter than me needs to explain this discrepancy. Evidently a positive outcome is not necessary to qualify as a success.
Conclusion:
The original GAO requirement was for information on “performance” and “effectiveness” to support determination of what constituted an adequate aircraft firefighting fleet. From a program manager’s standpoint, this study does not provide the necessary information to determine aircraft inventory objectives or mix of types.
AFUE made an assumption — they assumed that what we are doing today with aircraft is mostly correct. This going-in assumption resulted in missing an examination of “Are we doing it the right way? Are we using the right assets? Or, are we just doing the best we can and getting by with what we have?” The answers to these questions are necessary to inform the data collection process and objectives. It is highly likely that the AFUE data more closely reflects firefighting that is making do with what it has, as opposed to selecting the best aircraft for the job.
Australia has done a far better job at justifying use of firefighting aircraft and examining aircraft effectiveness and performance.
Going to your e-mail questions.
Is it useful? Aircraft types are grouped so nothing can be determined about specific aircraft except in a most general nature based on Tanker Type Categories.
Adequate comparison? Data is insufficient or entirely missing.
Future program decision support? Not useful in determining aircraft inventory and types for a national air firefighting fleet. Also not adequate to support program decisions because it never answered the “why” various types were chosen for various missions.
Cost metric. As mentioned in my missive, it’s about payloads required/delivered. That is a better sorting function than Tanker Type. Aircraft Type and #’s are dependent variables of payload and payload related requirements.
Aircraft Mix going forward…
My familiarity is somewhat limited. I would like to think I understand some of aviation based on my 31 years of military and some commercial experience but since I’m on the board of directors of a 98 square mile fire protection district in Colorado (the district with the community at highest assessed risk of loss to wildfire in the whole state of Colorado) my immediate day-to-day scope is much more focused on things like IA, what it takes for our department to keep small fires small, and our citizens safe.
In Colorado it is the small fire protection districts that are primarily responsible for IA.
If something like 95-96% of our wildfires fires are contained then the approximately 95-96 % containment was probably due to effective IA. Taking a couple more percent off of the escaped fire percentage is far cheaper than fighting a large fire.
Maybe more unique to Colorado, but almost every district could use more staff for IA (primarily volunteer departments) and larger budgets for equipment. Neither one is in the cards. We need close air support to overcome the obstacles of marginally accessible terrain and shortage of staff. Small, accurate, and timely air support comes to mind.
Like a Marine gunny I knew once observed — when I need close air support I don’t want a B-52, I usually want something like an A-10 with a gun.
We are short of big lakes around here so scoopers are out. Dipping/snorkeling helos come to mind to directly support the small crews that are responsible for getting the initial attack going. SEAT’s reload-return times are too long.
Somewhere in the bean counting world there is a very good reason a LAT or VLAT cannot be made available for every 12-20 man module/ crew working an IA. Locally, we need more helos. Who owns the helos isn’t important. It is the response time and cycle time that counts.
We need the bigger tankers for the 4 or 5% of the fires that do escape.
If I had to do a rough guess on the aviation mix, I’d start on the ground floor with what might be considered “first principles” and look at the targets list… (how many fires, how big, where, how often), then figure out what needs to be dropped on the various targets and generally, where the targets are and if the missions are direct support or indirect support. Determine payload type, quantity, and necessary accuracy. Then, look at the best aviation mix to deliver the required payloads.
Bean Barrett
31 years as a Naval Aviator flying tactical jets, some heavy time, and a little prop time.
Flew for Continental Airlines for two years.
Aviation Safety Officer and mishap investigator.
Staff time at the Navy Strike Warfare Center/ included work on close air support training.
Navy sponsor on Navy Staff for some air and space programs. Total annual obligation authority $1B.
Presently on our local Colorado fire protection district board of directors. Have worked with our fire department for over 10 years.
Lived in Colorado’s front range tinderbox since 1979. Have seen several of our front range big fires up close and personal. Evacuated for one.
If you were operating as an integrated air-ground team, your air element would be assigned to you before you get to the fire. You start with your own air support.
The following is written by Gary Barrett, also known as “Bean”, a former naval aviator who has contributed an article or two previously and regularly leaves comments on the website. He brings a different background and point of view to the air tanker issue.
An illustration from the report on air initial attack alone:
Combined attack vs integrated attack:
If the USFS had a similar document on the effectiveness of initial attack in 5 fuel hazard types by tanker/ crew arrival time [page 3 and 4 of referenced technical paper] , they would have been able to defend their requirements for tankers and ground equipment to congress, determine basing requirements, and contract availability requirements by type.
From previous experience in targeting for Navy tactical strikes, it is critical that the effectiveness of what you drop is known scientifically and described mathematically. The military has determined a munition effectiveness probability number for everything it has. It tells you how many aircraft of what type with what munitions you send on a strike against a particular type of target. The Naval Strike Warfare Center in Fallon NV stood up in the mid 1980’s to teach the tactical carrier Navy how to fight smarter, not harder … Google “Torpedo 8” and look at the battle of Midway to see a classic example of where fighting harder got us. We had plenty of other later examples of the same fight harder problem that indicated we were not a “learning organization”. We tended to use technology to enable us to do more of what we always used to do [fight harder].
It seems to me that the issue with using aircraft to fight fires in the US is in pretty much in the same place that Navy TACAIR was before the Strike Warfare Center stood up in the mid 1980’s. The usual answer from today’s firefighting community seems to be “fight harder” and more is better. You can’t fight smarter until you get smarter. If that means setting up canned experiments in controlled burns and collecting data, then do it. More contract studies with the dearth of information available today are useless.
The firefighting community should develop formal definitions of probability of success for each type of air tanker based on lets say 5 fuel types or hazard conditions, types of retardant, terrain slope, release parameters, and coverage levels or they will never get where they need to go when it comes time to decide how many tankers of what type carrying what kind of retardant, based where under what kind of contract is required to achieve a certain probability of success. When the time comes, you use what you have but if you have a “smarter program”, there is a better chance of having the right stuff where you need it when you need it.
Rhetorical question: What is the probability of success for a line of X level coverage of retardant [pick the type] on fuel hazard class Y in terrain of slope Z? Can’t answer? Your only solution then is to “fight harder and more is better”.
Congress and GAO have already demonstrated that they aren’t interested in the “trust me I’m a career firefighter with a zillion hours of experience and we need more” argument. One could say that the industry with the best track record for getting money from congress is the military-industrial complex and they never use the “trust me” argument.
Getting smarter enables the profession to escape from the apprentice … journeyman … master training cycle that requires a lifetime of experience, critically depends on the questionably cohesive informal knowledge held by the various “masters” and significantly limits the numbers that can be effectively trained in the profession. For all I know, if more was understood about retardant effectiveness under various conditions, different more effective tactics could be developed to deal with wildfires. Better ways of getting the job done could be developed. Firefighters could fight smarter not harder.
Where’s the published US tactics manual for aerial firefighting? It could start with the two graphs above and grow from there. All ex military aviators lived by their tactics manual for their particular aircraft. It explained what you did with the aircraft after you learned how to fly it.
A Coast Guard C-130H, No. 1709, October, 2008. This is one of the seven C-130Hs being transferred to the USFS. Photo by Bob Garrard.
Until now the U.S. Forest Service has never had to manage a fleet of 22 medium and large transport aircraft. But in the coming months the agency that was created to grow trees will be reminded of the phrase, “be careful what you wish for”, as they become the owners of seven large four-engine C-130H transport planes and 15 smaller C-23B Sherpa transport planes “given” to them by the Coast Guard and the Army. The Forest Service is still going to grow trees and clean toilets in campgrounds, while taking on this air force of 22 very expensive aircraft.
Transfers to take place no later than February 11
The legislation requiring the transfer of the aircraft required that both the C-130Hs and C-23B Sherpas be transferred within 45 days after the bill was signed, which makes February 11, 2014 the last day for the transfer to take place. The C-130Hs will go first to the Air Force which will arrange for maintenance, upgrades of the air frame, and the installation of the retardant system. Then the Air Force will transfer them to the U.S. Forest Service. The Sherpas will be transferred directly from the Army to the USFS by February 11.
Last week a USFS employee with knowledge of how their aviation section is organized told Wildfire Today that up to that point the agency had not made any decisions about an organizational structure that would manage this air force within the agency. Individual short-term tasks were being handed out one at a time, while multiple functional areas were trying to get involved, lobbying for their piece of the pie.
Initially bringing the 22 aircraft into the agency will be extremely complex and time-consuming, with FAA approvals, inspections, evaluating, painting, writing then awarding contracts for maintenance and pilots, deciding on a tanking system, contracts for installing tanking systems, avionics, etc. And, something the USFS has not done well, developing a comprehensive PLAN of how to manage the aviation assets now and in the future. The Air Force will do some of this, other than the planning, before the actual final transfer of the C-130s to the USFS (the Sherpas will not receive retardant tanks), but the Forest Service has to be involved in the decision making. Then, after the 22 aircraft are completely up and running, managing the programs on a continuing basis is not simply a part time job for one person.
Jennifer Jones, a Public Affairs Specialist for the Forest Service at the National Interagency Fire Center, told us today that the agency, at this point anyway, plans to use a Government Owned/Contractor Operated (GO/CO) model for the seven C-130H aircraft. The government will own them and the maintenance and operation will be handled by private contractors. The 15 Sherpas will be owned by the Forest Service — some will be flown by USFS pilots and others by contractors. All of the Sherpas will be maintained by private industry under contract, similar to how the existing four C-23A Sherpas are maintained. You could call this GO/CO-GO I suppose.
Coast Guard to assist with managing C-130Hs
We were surprised to hear from Mrs. Jones today that a joint U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Forest Service program office will provide logistics, operations, training, higher level maintenance, and support for the C-130H aircraft. The Coast Guard has been managing a fleet of C-130s since 1959, using them for long range search and rescue, drug interdiction, illegal migrant patrols, homeland security, and logistics. They have 24 older C-130Hs which are being upgraded with new center wing boxes and cockpit equipment with new multi-function displays. In 2008 they began replacing some of the C-130Hs with new C-130Js; they have six now with three more on order. All these numbers were valid before the Coast Guard agreed to send seven C-130Hs to the USFS if the Coast Guard could get the 14 almost new C-27J aircraft from the military that had been earmarked for the Forest Service.
Before we heard that there was going to be a USFS/Coast Guard collaboration, we asked a former fighter pilot for his opinion about how the C-130Hs should be managed. Gary “Bean” Barrett was a Navy Captain, the Commanding Officer of an adversary squadron and of a GO/CO squadron of heavy aircraft:
I would recommend standing up an organization like a composite group. One single individual in charge of the entire group [no rule by committee … it won’t work]. Since there are mission differences between C-23’s and C-130’s the group commander should probably have two “squadrons” under him. One for C-23’s, one for C-130’s and perhaps one or two maintenance squadrons depending on how the USFS choses to organize themselves. I am familiar with both the USAF concept of independent maintenance squadrons and the Navy concept of an integrated operational squadron with its own maintenance department. Either can work with contract maintenance but either way, the group commander has to “own” the program budget and the maintenance and the operations programs and the COTAR has to work for the group commander. When maintenance is directly involved in producing sorties instead of off in another state independently “fixing airplanes” the entire process seems to work better. Heavy or Depot level maintenance should be a separate contract.
Modification of the C-130 is a big hurdle since there is no military equivalent modification but I would think that it would be far easier to incorporate the tanker mod into a mil based maintenance program than to be forced to operate C-130’s under the FAA FAR’s. and the FAA C-130Q type rating.
C-23B Sherpas
The Sherpas have been stored at Fort Sill in Lawton, Oklahoma for an extended period of time but have been under a maintenance contract and could be put into service fairly quickly. While at Fort Sill, on a regular basis they have been started, run up to 80 percent power for five minutes, systems have been cycled, and the aircraft have been taxied. No scheduled maintenance has been performed so they may be due for some routine work. The USFS will need to run the Sherpas through the Smokejumper Aircraft Screening and Evaluation Board (SASEB), which is the focal point for all interagency smokejumper/paracargo aircraft, much like the Interagency AirTanker Board evaluates air tankers. Other items on the to-do list include painting, avionics, removal of any unneeded military equipment, and ensure conformance with the FAA Certificate, but since they will not be used as air tankers, retardant tank systems will not have to be installed.
C-23B. Department of Defense file photo.
Ms. Jones said the C-23B Sherpas will be used to deliver smokejumpers and cargo and to perform other wildfire support missions. They are capable of carrying up to 10 smokejumpers or 30 passengers and up to 7,000 pounds of cargo. The C-23B Sherpas will replace all four U.S. Forest Service owned C-23A Sherpas and the DC-3T currently used for smokejumper missions. The additional aircraft will eventually replace contracted smokejumper aircraft and support other fire missions. They expect to begin using two of the newer Sherpas in 2014 to drop cargo and will begin using it in 2015 to deliver smokejumpers.
The C-23B Sherpa has a rear cargo ramp which can be opened during flight which could be used for paracargo or by smokejumpers, both of which would be new to the USFS. The C-23A Sherpa has a rear cargo ramp, but it does not open in flight.
