helicopter Archives - Page 11 of 27

USFS reduces the number of helicopters on national contracts

Bill GabbertMarch 9, 2012September 12, 2012Uncategorizedair tanker, helicopter, Photo by Bill G10 Comments

Boeing Vertol Type 1 helicopter at Custer, SD, July 31, 2011. Photo by Bill Gabbert

When we reported on some of the statements that the Chief of the U.S. Forest Service made on Tuesday when he testified before a congressional committee, some of the information about the availability of helicopters raised my curiosity. Chief Tom Tidwell said there will be 30 large Type 1 helicopters on national contracts this year compared to 34 last year, but not all of those last year were Type 1, so this year, according to Chief Tidwell, there will be a net increase in the number of gallons of water that can be carried.

We confirmed that yes, there will be 30 helicopters on national U.S. Forest Service contracts in 2012. The Request for Proposal that the agency issued was for 34 helicopters, but the USFS decided to eliminate four — at Alturas, CA; Oakridge, OR; Orland, CA; and Porterville, CA.

It is debatable whether all 30 of them are Type 1 helicopters, as Chief Tidwell stated. Eight of the 30 are K-1200 (K-Max) ships that have a capacity of 680 gallons of water in an external load, according to the capabilities listed on two of the K-Max contractors’ web sites. The standard for a Type 1 helicopter is for it to be able to carry at least 700 gallons. If someone is listing the K-Max as a Type 1, it is very close to the minimum number of gallons, while as you can see in the chart below, the other helicopters on contract this year can carry from 900 to 2,650 gallons.

The K-Max has by far the cheapest hourly rate of all of the helicopters on contract this year– about 1/6 of the largest Type 1s. And it has by far the smallest capacity. However, the USFS Chief feels free to say all of the helicopters on national contract are Type 1.

One change that was noted in the new contract is that the Boeing Vertol 107 that was at Custer, South Dakota, is being replaced with a smaller K-Max, reducing the number of gallons carried by 38 percent. A cynic might think that in this case the USFS is strictly saving money, with little regard to firefighting capability.

The National Interagency Aviation Council study that was approved by the National Wildfire Coordinating Group in July, 2008, recommended that there be on contract in 2012, 34 Type 1 helicopters, 47 Type 2 helicopters, and 100 Type 3 helicopters. The same study recommended that there be by this year 23 large air tankers plus 3 water scooper air tankers on contract, for a total of 26, and by 2018 a total of 35 (32 plus 3).

Since the number of large air tankers on USFS national exclusive use contracts has decreased by 75% since 2002, down to 11 today, it is difficult to understand the logic of decreasing the number of helicopters. A rational person would attempt to fill the void with more, rather than less. A rational person would also be alarmed that the unable to fill rate for air tanker orders in 2011, a slow fire season in most of the country, was 30 percent.

This state of the wildfire aviation program can be attributed to management that is characterized as lethargic, apathetic, indifferent, timid, passive, indecisive, and afflicted with the Peter Principle and analysis paralysis, as evidenced by the five wildfire aviation studies over the last 16 years that are sitting on shelves, largely ignored. This sorry state of the program has existed for the last 10 years. The citizens deserve better from the stewards of the land.

Forest Service Chief testifies about wildfire budget and air tankers

Bill GabbertMarch 7, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, helicopter, Tidwell6 Comments

The Chief of the U.S. Forest Service told a congressional committee on Tuesday that he expects the wildfire suppression budget to be “tight” this year and that he plans to rely more on the military’s eight MAFFS air tankers than the agency did last year.

In front of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, Chief Tom Tidwell read a prepared statement about the FY 2013 USFS budget and then answered questions from members of the committee.

While the proposed budget fully funds the 10-year average cost of wildland fire suppression operations for FY 2013, Chief Tidwell said that based on current and predicted conditions, this year “it’s going to be tight for us to have adequate funding for fire suppression”.

Two senators, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Lisa Murkowsk of Alaska, gave their opinions and asked detailed questions about the availability of air tankers. Senator Wyden said that the USFS should speed up the adoption of new technology, and gave an example of a very large air tanker in his state that has seven times the capacity of standard large air tankers. He was obviously referring to Evergreen’s 747, Tanker 979, which holds 20,000 gallons. The USFS has not been interested in offering exclusive use contracts for any very large air tankers (VLAT) and has only made call when needed contracts available. Evergreen has said they cannot continue to make the 747 available on a CWN basis with a very uncertain income stream. Another VLAT vendor, 10 Tanker Air Carrier, did accept the CWN contract and is struggling to manage their two DC-10s with no guarantee of income.

Senator Wyden told Chief Tidwell that he wants Mr. Tidwell within 30 days to respond to him and a bipartisan group of Senators explaining what the USFS will do to consider “new technology” and the use of VLATs.

Chief Tidwell said this year the agency will contract for two scooper air tankers (presumably CL-215s or CL-415’s) for the first time. He said the recent request for proposals for “next generation” air tankers will produce three additional air tankers this year and four more in 2013. Adding the two scoopers and three next-gen air tankers would bring the total from 11 last year to 16 this year. This compares to the 19 at the beginning of 2011, the 11 at the end of 2011, and the 44 in 2002. Chief Tidwell said that under the air tanker strategy announced recently by the USFS, he expects there will be 18 to 28 large air tankers eventually under contract.

He said there will be 30 large Type 1 helicopters on national contracts this year compared to 34 last year, but not all of those last year were Type 1, so this year there will be a net increase in the number of gallons that can be carried.

Chief Tidwell also testified that he expects to rely more this year than last year on the Mobile Airborne Fire Fighting Systems (MAFFS) C-130 air tankers operated by the Air National Guard and the Air Force reserve. But Senator Murkowski confronted him with the fact that “the military does not desire to take on additional responsibilities with the C-130s”. She said “We need to be very cognizant of the stresses we are putting on the [Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve] system.”

Chief Tidwell responded:

The Department of Defense is not interested in expanding their mission to assist in this, but also at the same time they are going to continue to work with us to provide these air national guard unit planes when we need them after everything else is fully committed. It is part of our strategy to help bridge. If we have an active fire season we are going to have to rely on those eight MAFFS planes.

A video of the 110-minute hearing can be found on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s web site.

Wildfire news, February 26, 2012

Bill GabbertFebruary 26, 2012August 25, 2019Uncategorizedair tanker, helicopter

There were no earth-shattering stories related to wildfire over the weekend, but here are a few that we noticed:

Fires in western Arkansas

KFSM, a television station in Arkansas, tweeted this satellite photo of fires burning in the west Arkansas counties of Le Flore, Logan, Scott and Johnson. It is dated Saturday, February 25 at 4:30 p.m.

Helicopter pilot volunteers for local fire department

A helicopter pilot who owns and operates a helicopter in Burnet, Texas has been volunteering the use of his helicopter his services as a pilot to assist the Burnet Volunteer Fire Department. When called, Rick Neeley, a professional pilot, donates his time and even the fuel for the helicopter when the fire department needs some eyes in the air to provide additional situational awareness when large vegetation fires are burning in Burnet County.

John Smallwood, a Captain with the department, was quoted by KWTX as saying: “He’s handy for us. We tell dispatch that we need help with air support and we mention his name. They have his number and he always comes out to help us.”

“(I’m) just kind of giving them some eyes in the sky and letting them see things or know things that they would have no other way of knowing,” Neely affirmed. “God’s just blessed us with a way to help and all these guys are helping out in the way they can and we just get out and help the way we can.”

Smoke from wildfires in Thailand creating issues

Smoke from wildfires is causing problems in Thailand, including health issues and the cancellation of commercial flights for at least one airline. On Sunday officials had planned to survey from a helicopter the Thai-Myanmar border area to assess the fires before sending in firefighters, but poor visibility forced the mission to be cancelled. Here is an excerpt from an article at bangkokpost.com:

The forest fires are spreading on both sides of the Thai-Myanmar border, obstructing air and land transport. A thick haze of smoke is seen over most parts of the border town.

Many residents are being treated for eye irritation and breathing difficulties. The smoke crisis was expected to continue for the next few days as authorities are struggling to put out the fires, Mr Suriya said.

Police have set up security checkpoints on several major roads to warn motorists to exercise extra caution and turn on headlights while driving in poor visibility.

Nok Air, the low-cost airline serving Mae Sot, has been forced to land its aircraft in Phitsanulok for the fourth day because of the poor visibility.

Tanker 40 returns to Missoula

Tanker 40 at Missoula — Tanker 40 arriving at Neptune's hangar at the Missoula airport on Sunday

The jet-powered BAe-146 air tanker that Neptune Aviation is leasing from Tronos returned from Prince Edward Island in Canada today after completing a lengthy scheduled maintenance which normally takes about 21 work days. Tanker 40 arrived at Prince Edward Island on December 24 and returned to Missoula Sunday at 5:30 p.m.

Both Neptune and Minden, with nine and two large air tankers on contract respectively, have been asked by the U.S. Forest Service to begin deploying their air tankers earlier than usual this year, due to the fire seasons becoming longer.

Helicopter operators gearing up for the 2012 wildfire season

Bill GabbertJanuary 25, 2012January 25, 2012Uncategorizedhelicopter1 Comment

The following was released on PRWeb by the American Helicopter Services & Aerial Firefighting Association (AHSAFA), a Washington-based trade association representing commercial operators of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft engaged in aerial wildland firefighting. It is a good update on the status of four companies that provide helicopters for wildland fire management, Erickson, Columbia, Intermountain, and Rogers.

=============================================================

Aerial Firefighters Gearing Up For The 2012 Wildland Forest Fire Season

Helicopter operators specializing in aerial firefighting are anticipating an early start to the 2012 wildland fire season.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) January 25, 2012

“With near record lows in rainfall, combined with record high temperatures in much of California in December–plus ongoing dry conditions throughout much of the Southwest–the aerial firefighters are preparing for an earlier than normal deployment of assets, given the prevailing high fire dangers, especially in those parts of the country,” said Tom Eversole, Executive Director of the American Helicopter Services and Aerial Firefighting Association (AHSAFA) in Washington.

“For us, the 2011 fire season never really went away,” noted Dan Sweet, Public Relations Manager for Columbia Helicopters in Portland, Oregon. “For instance, we have had a Columbia Helicopters Vertol 107-II in Big Spring, Texas, since March of last year, and expect to keep that helicopter there for the immediate future.” Sweet noted that Columbia performs heavy maintenance, as well as pilot training during the winter months. This year, 15-20 pilots will be assigned to four of the company’s aircraft–three Columbia Helicopters Vertol 107-II’s, and one Columbia Helicopters Model 234 Chinook–which will be operated under US Forest Service (USFS) exclusive-use contracts for firefighting. That is the same number operated for the USFS in 2011. Concurrently, 30-40 field maintenance crews are undergoing training.

Portland/Central Point Oregon based Erickson Air-Crane has yet to see a break in activity pertaining to the fire season on a global level. Currently the company holds 5 contracted locations in Australia between the Central, Southern and Eastern portions. In December a 6th location was requested by the Fire Authorities for Erickson to provide an S-64 Helitanker for Western Australia operating out of Perth. Half of these will return to the United States and the other half will be shipped to Greece under contract with the Greek fire authorities. San Diego Gas and Electric requested an addition S-64 in August to augment its power line construction and fire standby through the middle of January 2012 for the greater San Diego City and County areas. Erickson is also gearing up for the U.S. fire season with 6 S-64’s under exclusive use contracts with the U.S. Forest Service with 2 additional aircraft assigned to the city of Los Angeles, CA. Erickson Air-Crane will be operating 16 of their own aircraft and providing maintenance and crewing for up to 5 additional customer owned S-64’s.

Intermountain Helicopters of Sonora, California is also getting ready for an active fire season through an aggressive maintenance program on its Bell 212 and Bell 412 twin engine helicopters, according to Rick Livingston, Director of Operations. Currently, Intermountain Helicopters has a six person staff, which includes four pilots and three mechanics, some of whom are cross-trained to fly and maintain the aircraft. “All annual inspections are done prior to the fire season, in order to avoid component failure in the field during mid-season,” Livingston noted. “That’s why, when a component is within about 100 hours of change out, we’ll do it immediately, rather than let it go to the life limit, and risk a failure in the field. We have a very proactive, preventative maintenance program, not just for the helicopters, but the fuel trucks, and maintenance trailers that go out with them.”

Fresno, California-based Rogers Helicopters’ Vice-President Robin Rogers reported the company, which operates a mixed fleet of 11 single and twin-engine helicopters, has two Bell 212s and one Eurocopter A-star helicopter, along with a fixed wing Turbo Commander aircraft, ready for dispatch. “In addition to annual aircraft scheduled maintenance checks, our staff of 25 mechanics also perform annual inspections of our support equipment, which includes a combination of 30 fuel trucks, and maintenance trailers,” said Rogers. “We also inspect all of the equipment that needs to be aboard each aircraft, by contract, such as the Bambi buckets, and long lines.” Recurrent and upgrade pilot training is also done concurrently with the maintenance period. Right now, Rogers Helicopters employs 40 pilots, of which 22 are full time. As with maintenance, all pilot training is done in-house. “Our training is pretty standardized, because there is really no way to predict the severity of the fire season until it happens,” said Rogers. “If history is any indication, you would usually see fire activity in California and the Southwest in the March or April time frame. But with the current dry conditions and the Santa Ana winds, a wildfire could break out any time.”

Columbia Helicopters, Erickson Air-Crane, Intermountain Helicopters, and Rogers Helicopters are members of the American Helicopter Services & Aerial Firefighting Association (AHSAFA), the Washington-based trade association representing commercial operators of helicopters and fixed wing aircraft engaged in aerial wildland firefighting.

Thanks go out to Dick

Followup on New Zealand firefighting helicopter crash – 2 fatalities

Bill GabbertDecember 1, 2011January 4, 2012Uncategorizedfatality, helicopter, lodd

There is now confirmation that the crash of the firefighting helicopter in New Zealand that Wildfire Today covered yesterday resulted in two fatalities. Initially it was known that the helicopter crashed Wednesday night into the ocean off shore from a vegetation fire, but the official status of the pilot and passenger was “missing” until divers could access the wreckage in seven to ten meters of water a few hundred meters off shore.

Below is an update, courtesy of FirefighterCloseCalls.com:

====================================================

We regret to advise you that 2 Firefighers died this morning when a helicopter operating at a wildland fire that destroyed homes in New Zealand’s North Island. The helicopter went missing late last night off the Karikari Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island, and the wreckage was found early today. Rescue divers reached the wreckage and confirmed the two-man crew, a commercial helicopter pilot and a conservation department ranger, died in the crash. The helicopter was carrying out a reconnaissance flight over the fire when it crashed. The 2 Firefighters faced very heavy fire and smoke conditions. Pilot John de Ridder, along with Department of Conservation Ranger William Macrae, were sent to help evacuate trapped residents on the Karikari Peninsula. The Squirrel helicopter went down not far from the fire while making a reconnaissance flight over the fire which burned two homes in Matai Bay.

De Ridder, a seasoned pilot in these conditions, was a director for Salt Air, a charter company. Chief executive Grant Harnish said that de Ridder was one of the Far North’s most experienced and respected helicopter pilots. They were fighting the fire when he was requested by command to divert to pick civilians up from the beach and get them away from approaching fire and out of harm’s way. The pilot removed the monsoon bucket and then began the new task.

William Macrae, 54, was in the passenger seat when the helicopter crashed and was a long serving and highly respected ranger who has worked the job for 16 years. Macrae’s brother, also a DOC ranger, was busy operating at the fire when his brother crashed. His wife is the receptionist at the Kaitaia office. The fire, believed to have been deliberately set, started late Wednesday, forcing some residents in the remote area to wade into the ocean to escape the fire. Our sincere condolences to all affected.

Helicopter crashes while surveying wildfire in New Zealand

Bill GabbertNovember 30, 2011January 4, 2012Uncategorizedhelicopter

Two people are missing after a helicopter that was being used to survey a wildfire in the Northland of New Zealand (map) crashed Wednesday night, November 30. The two people onboard, believed to be a Department of Conservation staff member and long-time far North pilot, were on a reconnaissance flight over a fire. The helicopter was last heard from at approximately 11 p.m. and was found the next morning by the crew on a fishing trawler in seven to ten meters of water a few hundred meters off shore. It is unknown if the two people were still in the helicopter which is owned by Salt Air, of Kerikeri, and believed to be a light single engine Eurocopter Squirrel.

Maitai Bay — The area of the fire and the crash of the helicopter.

According to Stuff.co.nz, the fire had burned about 148 acres and is controlled on the southern side but was still spreading on the northern perimeter. Three homes are reportedly destroyed.

Some of the residents fled from the fire into the sea and were rescued by boat. This also happened about a week ago in Australia when residents who refused to evacuate took refuge in the ocean and were transported by jet ski out to a waiting rescue boat.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families and co-workers.

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: