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Tag: helicopter

Will the Osprey ever fight fires?

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , 2 Comments on Will the Osprey ever fight fires?
Osprey. USAF photo
Osprey. USAF photo

The Osprey, a tilt-rotor, vertical take-off and landing aircraft, is replacing some of the Vietnam era CH-46E Sea Knight and CH-53 Super Stallion helicopters used by the Marine Corps. Since the disastrous wildfires in southern California in 2007, the U.S. Navy and the Marine Corps have had an agreement with Cal Fire making it possible to use their military helicopters on fires if Cal Fire is unable to handle the fires with their own aerial assets.

In July of 2008, CH-46E and CH-53E military helicopters made at least 574 drops on fires in California, delivering 217,000 gallons of water.

At first glance, the Osprey might seem like an excellent firefighting tool. It is fast (cruises at 277 mph), could haul 24-32 firefighters, and could carry 1,800 gallons of water externally. But it has never dropped a gallon of water on a fire and it is possible that it never will due to at least two potential problem areas.

Rotor Wash

As you can see in the photo above, the rotor wash or downdraft from an Osprey is extremely strong–far stronger than a conventional helicopter. Rotor wash from a helicopter can cause, and has caused, serious problems when the wind from the rotors spreads the fire in unexpected directions, sometimes doing more harm than good. Marines even worry that Osprey rotor wash may damage or destroy unrecorded archaeological sites in training areas.

According to a report from the Government Accountability Office, the rotor wash creates enough force to knock sailors and aircraft off a flight deck on a ship.

May CAUSE fires

The Osprey’s engines run extremely hot, so hot that the Navy is taking special precautions to prevent the engine exhaust from melting or buckling the aluminum decks of warships. A report from DARPA states:

The deployment of the MV-22 Osprey has resulted in ship flight deck buckling that has been attributed to the excessive heat impact from engine exhaust plumes… Navy studies have indicated that repeated deck buckling will likely cause deck failure before planned ship life.

DARPA has designed a “flight deck thermal management system” which would liquid-cool the deck from below or above while the aircraft are idling or launching. The military has put out a request for proposals for other permanent deck-cooling systems that could be retro-fitted or designed into new ships still on the drawing board.

Wildfire Today reported on May 30, 2009, that an Osprey made an unscheduled precautionary landing in North Carolina and started a 5-acre fire in a wet marsh. We wrote then:

Marines refueled the Osprey but according to WECT.com, upon taking off it “smashed into swamp mud, nose first”. During that takeoff attempt, heat from the engine exhaust started a vegetation fire which did some damage to the exterior of the aircraft.

A news release from the Marine Corp claims:

The grass fire was quickly extinguished by the crew chief, but caused an undetermined amount of heat damage to the aircraft exterior.

But Emergency Management Director Eddie King said the local fire department had to work through the night to extinguish a 5-acre fire, in an area infested with snakes and alligators, that was caused by the incident.

Osprey hauling a Humvee. U.S. Navy photo.
Osprey hauling a Humvee. U.S. Navy photo.

Aussie air tanker pilots complain about exploding fuel drums

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags ,

During the large vegetation fires in southern California in 2003 the fires were so intense that the windshields on six air tankers were cracked by chunks of debris that were being hurled into the air (page D-6 in 2003 California Governor’s Blue Ribbon Report; huge 20 Mb file). One pilot saw a four by eight sheet of plywood sail past at 1,500 feet.

Currently there are over 100 fires burning in Australia, with about 20 of them being classified as “uncontrollable”.  These fires, too, are burning very intensely according to a story in The Australian:

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PILOTS flying hazardous water-bombing missions over bushfire-ravaged Kinglake have described how their aircraft were rocked by the concussion of exploding fuel drums and of steel lids being flung hundreds of feet from the conflagration below.

Fire bomber aircrew fought a desperate battle to save homes but the sheer speed of the Kinglake fire proved overwhelming, said Helicorp chief Steve Graham, whose fleet includes five of the famous orange Erickson Air Cranes.

The dramatic description came from the pilot of one of four helicopters deployed to fight the Kinglake inferno on Saturday night.

“He had lids of 44 gallon drums being sent up by the exploding chemicals and fuel drums in the paddocks and in the houses,” Mr Graham told The Australian.

“Flying among all this he could physically feel the vibrations and concussion of explosions, and then there’s wires, heat and smoke.”

The undisputed king of the aerial bombers is the Air Crane, a modified version of a 1960s heavy-lift chopper capable of dumping 10,000 liters of water.

But the fire fleet this year also comprises medium-size helicopters like the Bell 212 and Bell 205 capable of hauling 1.4 tonnes of water and an assortment of fixed wing aircraft.

Aircrew are typically a mix of American, Canadian, Australian and New Zealanders.

Each Air Crane chopper requires a six-person crew, three pilots and three engineers responsible for a gruelling maintenance schedule demanded by the hard working machines.

Fire bombing is anything but random and requires carefully managed aerial coordination, Mr Graham said.

At the heart of the operation is a flying observer called an aerial attack coordinator.

Armed with a bank of radio sets tuned to the different frequencies of various emergency services on the ground, he receives instructions on targets and directs the water-bombing aircraft.

“If the guy on the ground says, we’ve got a real problem over on this ridge, the guy in the air says thanks very much, we’re on it, and he then directs the heavy artillery into the area that is needed,”Mr Graham said.

The capability of the Air Crane does not come cheap, with one aircraft’s running costs in the order of “tens of thousands of dollars per air hour” Mr Graham said.

Two Air Cranes are normally based out of Sydney, two in Melbourne and one in Adelaide, Mr Graham said.

Helicorp has just signed a five-year contract with the National Aerial Firefighting Centre to provide a fleet of specialised aircraft during the summer bushfire season.

Three helicopter incidents on fires in Australia, one fatality

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , ,

Numerous media outlets are reporting that a New South Wales (NSW) Parks and Wildlife ranger who was a passenger on a helicopter died when the ship crashed on Wednesday on the NSW mid-north coast. The pilot initially walked away from the accident but is in critical condition in a hospital with injuries to the head, chest, and back.

The Bell Jet Ranger helicopter was contracted by the National Parks and Wildlife Service and the Rural Fire Service out of Glenn Innes to map a number of bushfires started by lightning overnight. It was returning to base when it crashed in a rain forest. Investigators are evaluating whether fog in the area contributed to the crash.

The pilot has over 3,000 hours of flying time.

In a second incident, two Rural Fire Service helicopters were involved in a mid-air collision when the water bucket of the higher ship contacted the rotor blades of the lower helicopter while working on a bushfire in the NSW central west on Tuesday. The four pilots were not injured and both ships landed safely, one with damage. The accident occurred in dense smoke.

The third incident occurred when the pilot of a helicopter working on a fire about 40km southeast of Tamworth was forced to make an emergency landing due to engine trouble. Again, no injuries were reported, but in the “heavy landing” the aircraft was extensively damaged.

Our sincere condolences go out to the families.

In a non-aircraft incident in Australia, two property owners were seriously burned while defending their home from a bushfire in the central-west town of Vittoria, near Bathurst on Tuesday afternoon. The 61-year old farmer is in critical condition after suffering burns over 81 percent of his body. His 20-year-old son was also injured but is in stable condition.

In the words of Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on Hill Street Blues, “Let’s be careful out there”.

Night-flying poll

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , ,

The recent announcement by Tom Harbor of the U.S. Forest Service that they will consider re-establishing a night-flying program for firefighting helicopters brings to mind last year when we took up the issue here. At that time the topic was being discussed because the San Diego County Board of Supervisors was considering night-flying for their fire helicopters. In July of 2008 Wildfire Today conducted a poll, asking:

“Should helicopters fight fire at night?”

At the close of the poll 231 people had voted. The results were:

Yes: 39.8%

No: 51.9%

Don’t Know: 8.2%

Poll helicopters night flying July 2008

USFS considers night-flying helicopters

Author Bill GabbertPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , ,
A Los Angeles County fire helicopter does a drop over a hotspot in Rancho Palos Verdes on Aug. 28, 2009. (Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press)
A Los Angeles County fire helicopter does a drop over a hotspot in Rancho Palos Verdes on Aug. 28, 2009. (Mark J. Terrill)

(updated @ 12:12 p.m. MT, Dec. 1)

The U. S. Forest Service, apparently in response to criticism  from the Los Angeles County Fire Department and the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, is again considering using water-dropping helicopters at night.

The USFS experimented with night flying in the 1970s, but abandoned it after a helicopter collision and since then has said it is too dangerous to fly helicopters 30 minutes after sunset.

The Associated Press reports that USFS Fire and Aviation Management Director Tom Harbor said:

“We are in the process . . . of one more time taking a look at night-flying operations. But we will have to make sure that those operations, before we change our policy, are worth the benefits.”

In a report they issued on November 18, the LA County Fire Department criticized the USFS for not using helicopters at night during the early stages of the August-September 160,000-acre Station Fire near Los Angeles that killed two LA County firefighters.

In 1977 two night flying helicopters collided, one operated by the USFS and the other by the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The helicopters were preparing to land at a water reloading point. Both pilots were wearing night-vision goggles. One of the pilots was killed, and the other sustained serious injuries.

After that collision, some pilots abandoned night-vision goggles for a while, or wore them only during certain phases of the mission. The goggles produce “tunnel vision”, providing a narrow field of view and very little peripheral vision. If a fire has a significant amount of flames, enough light is sometimes available in the active fire area that night-vision goggles are not necessary to actually make the water drop, but may be required flying to and from the drop area.

Several fire agencies in southern California currently use helicopters to suppress fires at night, including Los Angeles County, San Diego County, and Kern County. San Bernardino County operates helicopters at night for law enforcement operations, but the last we heard, they did not use them on fires at night.  Orange County recently bought $25 million worth of specially equipped helicopters so they could operate at night, but a dispute with their union has kept their ships grounded after dark.

One of the modifications that must be made to a helicopter in order to be used with night-vision goggles is to enable the instrument panel lights to be adjusted to a very low level, because the goggles magnify all light by hundreds of thousands of times. Normal panel lights would overwhelm the goggles.

Andrew Palmer fatality report released

Author BillPosted on Categories UncategorizedTags , , , ,
Andrew_Palmer_2
Andrew Palmer, NPS photo

The National Park Service has released the report about the accident in which an NPS firefighter, Andrew Palmer, died. Mr. Palmer was killed during a tree falling incident on the Eagle fire, part of the Iron Complex on the Shasta Trinity National Forest in northern California on July 25, 2008. He was a firefighter at Olympic National Park in Port Angeles, Washington.

Here is a link to the report.

Below is the complete executive summary from the factual report:

Early in the day on July 22, 2008, an engine from Olympic National Park received a resource order to report to the Iron Complex, on the Shasta-Trinity National Forest, near Junction City, California. The crew and line supervision at the park were so motivated to see the engine crew obtain an immediate assignment that the NPFMO accepted the resource order despite not being able to contact all crew members who were on their day off. NPFMO tried all day to contact the crew and eventually assembled and dispatched the crew at 2100. Despite a late start and a series of complications enroute to the fire, which included mechanical problems with their engine that lead to the separation of their crew and engine captain, the remaining crew members were encouraged to continue to pursue a line assignment as a falling team. Because Incident Management personnel were equally motivated to find a line assignment for the eager crew, the crew was ultimately given an assignment as a falling module that they were not qualified for and without qualified first or second line supervision. During that assignment the crew cut a tree that was outside their falling qualifications, which resulted in the injury of FC1.

Upon arrival to the Incident Command Post on July 23, EM reported mechanical problems with the engine that required CAPT to drive the vehicle into Redding, California for warranty service. EM-CAPT stayed at ICP and on July 24, were given a logistical assignment in camp. On July 25, while CAPT was attempting to obtain a replacement engine from Whiskeytown National Recreation Area, EM-CAPT were given an assignment as a falling module to Division B on the Eagle Fire. The assignment was to mitigate hazard trees along the fire line, so crews could safely work in the area. At approximately 1350, FC2 called ICP for medical assistance for severely injured FC1. Emergency medical personnel responded and treated the injured FC1 for severe bleeding. Due to heavy smoke conditions requiring Instrument Flight Rule (IFR) capability, primary helicopter resources were unable to respond to FC1’s location. Firefighters carried FC1, by litter, to a location where FC1 was hoisted into a United States Coast Guard Helicopter, at approximately 1630. The USCG helicopter carrying FC1 arrived at Redding Municipal Airport, where FLN, in consultation with a Mercy Hospital Emergency Room Physician, pronounced FC1’s death at 1710. The Coroner later determined the cause of death to be blood loss due to blunt force trauma to FC1’s left leg.

The report includes this statement on the page before the executive summary:

SAIT Disclaimer

Based on all evidence available to the SAIT, we know that FC1 was injured from being struck by a tree during a felling operation. From the time of the accident, until the preparing of this report, no individual member of EM-CAPT could be positively identified, nor excluded from being the sawyer at the time of the accident.

Evidence collected by the SAIT included 54 manual and electronic time-stamped documents. These documents were collected from multiple entities, in three different counties. Comparing documents that logged the same event, the SAIT noted time stamps often varied by 5 to 10 minutes.

“SAIT” is the Serious Accident Investigation Team.

Page 87 of the report includes this information:

Technical Assessment of Accident Site

Due to the lack of eye-witness accounts, a number of key facts are unclear; therefore actual events have been pieced together from interview statements and evidence at scene. FC2 and FC3 are the only surviving witnesses to the accident and they have not granted interviews to the Serious Accident Investigation Team. While it is impossible to determine at this time who actually fell Tree 1, it is possible for experienced observers to read the stump, the lay of the felled tree, and the felling area to determine how the felling of Tree 1 set into motion the sequence of events that lead to FC1 being injured.

On page 5 of the report is a description of the accident:

A decision was made to fall a large ponderosa pine (36.7” at the point of the cut). Downslope from the ponderosa pine was a 54” DBH sugar pine that had an uphill lean and a large cat face on the uphill side. When cut, the ponderosa pine fell downslope toward the sugar pine. It was contact with the sugar pine, or vibration from the ponderosa hitting the ground, that caused a portion of the sugar pine, approximately 120 feet long, to break off and fall upslope, hitting FC1 resulting in severe injuries.

The report includes the information that on August 6, 2008 the Serious Accident Investigation Team (SAIT) gave the case file to a National Park Service Special Agent. On August 7 the SAIT was “disengaged” from the “safety investigation” until further notice.

On January 26, 2009 the Federal Prosecutor issued a “Declination of Criminal Charges related to the death of FC1”. In early March the safety investigation resumed. The SAIT completed their report on May 18, 2009.