In case the 11 air tanker studies since 1995 are not enough, there is now a twelfth. As you can see on the cover above, it is named Analysis of Aircraft for the Fire Fighting Mission in Colorado. It compares four different aircraft, two of which have received certification from the Interagency AirTanker Board, and two that have never been converted into air tankers:
BAe-146
C-130H/Q
C-27J
S-3B
The study is Colorado-specific in that it looks at the retardant capacities if the aircraft were to fly out of four air tanker bases in the state: Denver, Durango, Grand Junction, and Pueblo, with elevations ranging from 4,726 to 6,685 feet, and runway lengths from 9,000 to 10,502 feet.
The study primarily considered four characteristics of the aircraft:
Retardant tank volume (certificated or estimated)
Mission payload capability from USFS air tanker bases in Colorado
Sustainability and after sales product support
Mission effectiveness expressed as gallons transported per hour and per day
The C-130J/Q led the field in all four categories.
Assuming the data compiled by Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information is correct, the retardant capacities at the Colorado air tanker bases “during typical summer temperatures (ISA + 30 degrees C)” for the C-27J and S-3B are stunningly low, averaging 184 and 181 gallons, respectively. The BAe-146 would have to download from the maximum of 3,000 gallons to 1,884, while the C-130Q/H would always, according to the report, carry their maximum load of 3,500 gallons.
The tables below are from the study on page 33.
We are curious to know who paid for the study, which was “prepared for [Colorado state] Senator Steve King”. A phone call to Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information was not immediately returned. Senator King has been very interested and vocal about the possible acquisition of firefighting aircraft for his state.
Earlier this year legislation passed in Colorado that allowed for the creation of a “Colorado Firefighting Air Corps”, but it did not authorize any funding for the agency. The bill was introduced by Senators Steve King and Cheri Jahn
A P2V on the Whoopup Fire, 2011. Photo by Bill Gabbert
A report released by the Government Accountability Office yesterday about air tankers pointed out some of the same issues that were in a 2009 audit by the USDA’s Office of Inspector General. Both reports emphasized that the U.S. Forest Service and the Department of Interior need to collect data about the effectiveness of air tankers and put together a coherent plan on the management of the fleet, and a plan for the acquisition and justification of additional aircraft.
The GAO report was in response to a March, 2012 request by four U.S. Senators asking for a review of “the nation’s depleted fleet of firefighting aircraft and the remedies needed in the face of increasingly severe fire seasons.” The Senators were Ron Wyden, Lisa Murkowski, Dianne Feinstein, and Mark Udall.
The GAO conducted an “audit”, between August 2012 and August 2013. Their product assembled a great deal of information about the current state of the aerial firefighting fleet which has dwindled from 44 in 2002 down to 8 to 11 this year. But it does not have a lot of new, specific, and practical “remedies”, other than collect data and develop a coherent plan. It concluded:
None of the agencies’ studies and strategy documents contained information on aircraft performance and effectiveness in supporting firefighting operations, which limits the agencies’ understanding of the strengths and limitations of each type of firefighting aircraft and their abilities to identify the number and type of aircraft they need.
The GAO had three recommendations:
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; and
Subsequent to the completion of the first two recommendations, update the agencies’ 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 report included some information that is not widely known about Neptune’s BAe-146 air tankers. The Interagency AirTanker Board refused to extend the interim approval of the drop system in December, 2012 due to problems with the retardant delivery system and deficient performance. However, in February 2013, the National Interagency Aviation Committee overrode the IATB decision citing a shortage of air tankers. The committee granted an extension of the interim approval of the retardant delivery system through December 15, 2013. Neptune has recognized the problem and said a redesigned system is being installed in its’ third and fourth BAe-146s and next winter the problematic design in the first two will be upgraded.
The USFS’s recent Request for Information to possibly lease 7 to 15 aircraft outfitted with high-tech sensors to serve as platforms for aerial supervision could be partially in response to the GAO’s criticism about the lack of aircraft effectiveness data. These aircraft would be equipped with Infrared/Electro-Optical sensing systems with color camera and FLIR systems which would have recording capability. If the personnel on board had time, when they are not managing aircraft, they could record air tanker drops and monitor the location long enough to determine if the water or retardant had the desired effect on the spread of the fire. The aircraft would have an aft crew station for two people designed for training which would have a duplicate set of controls and radios, which could possibly also be used for evaluating drop effectiveness when not used for training.
Thanks go out to Rick and the others who let us know about this.
Tanker 07 on the Myrtle Fire, 2012. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
The U.S. Forest Service has released another study on air tankers (large 10mb file), which is one of nine commissioned by the agency on the topic since 1995. The $380,000 contract for this one was awarded to AVID, a Virginia-based company that employed a crew of retired and current aviation professionals for this project.
It would be helpful if an expensive 117-page report like this clearly stated the objectives for the study, but all we could find was this:
The purpose of this study is to build analytical data that can be used to estimate the requirement for airtankers in the future.
The report includes a huge quantity of statistics about how air tankers have been used over the last several years. I was expecting to see some concrete recommendations about how they should be used in the future, but there was little along those lines.
This study, like the RAND report, included no information about Very Large Air Tankers. But while the RAND study was favorable toward scoopers, this AVID report addresses them like this:
There is a relatively small amount of USFS background data that documents the use of scooper aircraft, making it difficult to come to conclusions regarding their use. While continued analysis of scooper usage is warranted, the focus of the current analysis is primarily on large airtanker usage, followed by heavy helicopter usage.
There was little else in the report about scoopers, reinforcing the perception that the USFS has a bias against them.
There was definitely some interesting data in the study, and below are two illustrations. Click on them to see larger versions.
The U.S. Forest Service has released a study on how the C-27J could be used by the agency if the Air Force gives them seven as expected. This ninth air tanker study since 1995 was a surprise to us — somehow the Forest Service kept this one under wraps.
The report was prepared by Convergent Performance, LLC in Colorado Springs, Colorado at a cost of $54,000. We can’t find a date on it but the document must have been released very recently. We found a link to it on the Forest Service web site.
If used as an air tanker
The report confirms one thing that we were told by Art Hinaman, USFS Assistant Director for Aviation, on July 1 when we talked with him at the dedication of the memorial site for the crash of MAFFS 7 a month ago. Mr. Hinaman said he thought the C-27J would hold around 1,800 gallons of retardant when outfitted with a conventional, gravity-fed, constant flow tank, and that is what the Convergent study came up with. Of course, Mr. Hinaman had probably already seen Convergent’s findings when we talked about it.
The report concluded the C-27J could carry 1,850 gallons of retardant if 3,200 pounds of unneeded equipment were removed, including flight deck armor (approximately 1,100 lbs), miscellaneous mission equipment such as litter stanchions, tie-down chains, ladders etc. (approximately 1,000 lbs), and the cargo loading system (approximately 1,200 lbs).
If a mini-MAFFS slip-in retardant system was designed for the C-27J cargo space, which is smaller than a C-130, it would hold approximately 1,100 gallons if the same excess equipment was removed. A MAFFS2 has a maximum capacity of 3,000 gallons, but frequently carries less depending on density altitude and fuel load. The mini-MAFFS would not have an air compressor, therefore requiring the aircraft to depend on air compressors being prepositioned at air tanker bases. The USFS has six mobile air compressor systems that were built to support the original MAFFS, but the latest generation, MAFFS2, has an onboard air compressor.
If used as a smokejumper ship
Smokejumpers could exit the C-27J through the two side doors or the aft ramp. Depending on how the aircraft was configured, it could transport between 24 and 46 jumpers.
Here is an excerpt from the report:
The C-27J aircraft is very compatible with the smoke jumper mission. The aircraft is specifically designed as an aerial delivery platform for personnel as well as cargo. The C-27J is a high wing aircraft keeping the disruptive airflow above the jump platform; a distance of 41” between the propeller and fuselage to keep turbulence well away from the jumpers; and a horizontal stabilizer on the tail that sits well above the jumper path practically eliminating any parachute contact. The high wing design and the cockpit’s 16-windows provide the best conditions for air to ground visibility and the robust avionics suite with HUD allows pinpoint GPS accuracy for each airdrop. The side doors have a very safe and comfortable height of 6’ 4” and the rear door opening is 7’ 5” high. Free-fall jumpers can be deployed from either side door exit or from the aft ramp. Static line jumpers can only be deployed using the side door exits.
If used to transport firefighters
According to the report, the aircraft configuration can be changed and fitted with standard outer and center seating to accommodate 68 passengers with limited personal equipment plus 2 loadmasters.
The USFS asked Convergent to analyze how the C-27J could be used to transport two 20-person crews to high-elevation airports with relatively short runways. (The maximum allowable flying weight for a hotshot crew is 5,300 pounds.) The examples given were Alturas, CA (KAAT), 4,378′ above sea level; Reserve, NM (T16), at 6,360′; and Negrito Airstrip, Reserve NM (0NM7), at 8,143′. The conclusions were that landing would not be a problem. At two of the three airports taking off would be possible, but at Reserve (T16) with the 4,777′ runway, the aircraft would usually be able to carry only one crew when departing.
If used for cargo
The aircraft could carry between 12,222 and 25,353 pounds of cargo.
Cost
If the C-27J accumulated 250 flight hours annually, Convergent estimated it would cost about $7,400 an hour over a 20 to 30 year life span. At 400 hours a year the cost would be about $5,800 an hour over 20 to 30 years.
Training
From the report:
The C-27J is training intensive and requires constant skill application by the aircrews to remain proficient and mission-ready. Although highly automated, this is not an aircraft that can be effectively and safely operated with min-run training and skill. It requires highly skilled professional aircrew. The training available is thorough and adequate, but it is time consuming (2- 3 months) and relatively expensive in its current form. The length of training and lead-time required to have a fully qualified crewmember to meet fire season operational demand will require structured, deliberate, action. Training is only offered by two sources, one being the manufacturer, but it is conducted overseas with equipment not representative of the aircraft the Forest Service would receive and is generally limited to new purchase customers as part of the point of sale agreement. The only US based training offered is in Warner-Robbins, GA.
A crew of retired and current aviation professionals has been assembled to conduct the sixth in an unending series of air tanker and helicopter studies. We wrote about this latest study on June 7 after it was awarded by the U.S. Forest Service to AVID LLC, a company in Virginia. While I could not find any mention of air tankers or wildfire on AVID’s web site except in mentioning one possible function of an unmanned aerial vehicle, the effect of that apparent lack of experience may be minimized by their shrewd hiring of a staff of experts for this $380,000 contract.
Tanker 45 dropping in the smoky Ferguson Canyon on the Whoopup Fire July 18, 2011, protecting structures. Photo by Bill Gabbert.
Dennis Hulbert, who retired from the U.S. Forest Service after serving as the Aviation Officer for the California Region, told Wildfire Today that he is a part of an assembled a group of professionals that will conduct the study with AVID. The team includes a retired National Assistant Director (Aviation), a Fire Planner/Forest Fire Management Officer/Incident Commander, several retired NASA employees, and some “Industry Professionals PHD- types”. In addition, AVID has some unique aircraft synthesis and analytical tools that can be used to assist these folks.
The AVID/Hulbert group will be guided by an in-house collection of federal employees who are subject matter specialists.
Mr. Hulbert believes that his group needs to define performance measures for firefighting aircraft that would be acceptable to the Office of Management and Budget and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Office of Inspector General, both of which have been critical of the USFS’s earlier air tanker proposals for procuring expensive Lockheed C-130J aircraft costing $80-90 million each. Tom Harbour, National Director for Fire and Aviation for the Forest Service, and Mark Rey, former Undersecretary of Agriculture (a position that oversees the USFS) who is now a lobbyist for Lockheed, have both recommended the purchase of C-130Js, but Mr. Harbour may be moving away from that position.
In addition to defining air tanker performance measures, the group should also define them for the U.S. Forest Service, such as an implementation schedule, with dates and names of responsible officials, for moving forward. Accountability can be an effective tool.
The Forest Service should have made decisions about the long-term composition of the fire aviation fleet 10 or 20 years ago. But since they continued to kick the can down the road year after year, and crash after fatal crash, this approach, wielding the expertise of actual wildfire aviation professionals, might be what it will take to move the process forward. Aviation professionals were used in the first four of the earlier studies (and there may have been some on the secret RAND study), but little followup occurred.
Tanker 45, a P2V, preparing to drop on the Whoopup fire. Photo by Bill Gabbert
The U.S. Forest Service has awarded a contract for another air tanker study, the sixth air tanker study in the last 17 years. It was given Friday June 1 to AVID LLC, a company in Virginia, which will receive $380,000 from the taxpayers, about half of what RAND received for their secret study, described by the USFS, “The data, analysis, and conclusion in this report are not accurate or complete.” This additional air tanker study should be finished in November. We will be curious to see if the USFS keeps this one secret also.
In scanning AVID’s web site, we can find no mention of wildfire, dispatching, aerial firefighting tactics, or air tankers. Some of the projects they have been involved with include software to determine the best route for an aircraft to reduce noise on takeoff, a small hovering unmanned aerial vehicle, and aerospace engineering.
The primary objective of this additional study is to “identify the appropriate number and types of aviation resources necessary to effectively meet future fire management needs”. In describing the contract, the USFS wrote:
The aerial firefighting mission is extremely complex in terms of aircraft use, aircraft characteristics, bases, contracts, costs, dispatching, mission objectives, tactics, strategy and communications.
It baffles me that a company with no apparent experience in the above, can provide a product that will be worth $380,000 of taxpayers’ money. What it will likely accomplish for the USFS is another six-month delay before they actually have to make a serious, detailed decision about rebuilding the air tanker fleet which, through neglect, has atrophied, from 44 in 2002 to the 9 we have today.
This reduction in the air tanker fleet has made fast, effective initial attack with ground AND air resources a quaint idea in our memory. If fires are not caught when they are small, some of them become large, and a few grow into mega-fires, consuming hundreds of thousands of acres and tens of millions of our dollars.
The U.S. taxpayers can only hope that this sixth air tanker study finally gives the USFS Fire and Aviation Management folks the answer they have been wanting, so we can cease this ridiculous analysis paralysis.
We wrote more about this sixth air tanker study in March.
The air tanker report that the U.S. Forest Service commissioned but refuses to release even after a Freedom of Information Act Request, was not released in May by the RAND Corporation as promised. RAND told Wildfire Today in March that they had no problem releasing the report to the public even though the USFS said “…the report is proprietary and confidential RAND business information and must be withheld in entirety under FOIA Exemption 4″. The USFS refusal letter went on to say: “The data, analysis, and conclusion in this report are not accurate or complete.” The USFS said they wanted “to protect against public confusion that might result from premature disclosure.”
Lisa Sodders of RAND told Wildfire Today on Monday that the report is still undergoing peer review “both internally and externally”, and explained that some of the reviews are taking longer than anticipated. RAND expects to release the report “in the coming weeks”, Ms. Sodders said.
The external reviews are probably the ones that are holding up the process, I’m thinking.
The USFS Forest Service paid RAND $840,000 for the study. This was the fifth study on air tankers since 1996. A sixth one is underway now, commissioned, again, by the U.S. Forest Service, but paid for, again, by the U.S. taxpayers.
Wildfire Today has learned that the RAND Corporation intends to release the air tanker study they performed for the U.S. Forest Service. The USFS has refused to release the $840,000 study even after receiving a Freedom of Information Act Request, saying “…the report is proprietary and confidential Rand business information and must be withheld in entirety under FOIA Exemption 4″. Their refusal letter went on to say: “The data, analysis, and conclusion in this report are not accurate or complete.” The USFS letter also said they wanted “to protect against public confusion that might result from premature disclosure.”
The RAND Corporation has a different view, and told us that they have no problem releasing the report after they complete a quality assurance review in late May. They would have released it sooner, but there was uncertainty as to whether the USFS would ask them for additional analysis.
This was the fifth study on air tankers since 1996. A sixth one will begin in a few weeks.
Here is the timeline since October, 2009 for the air tanker Analysis Paralysis:
October, 2009:The USFS awards contract for air tanker study to the RAND Corporation.
August, 2010: RAND completes the study (according to the RAND Corporation). USFS decides they need additional analyses “in order to add details to RAND’s analytic model that were not originally requested”, (according to RAND)
May, 2011: RAND completed the additional analyses and briefed the results to USFS officials. Afterwards the USFS said even more analysis is needed in order to to re-examine the modeling assumptions RAND and the Forest Service had previously agreed to make.
August, 2011: The USFS announced that they intended to award a second contract, a non-competitive contract, to the Rand Corporation for an additional analysis of the air tanker issue.
August, 2011; two weeks after the previous announcement, the USFS canceled the solicitation, “due to the responses received expressing interest in this procurement”.
February, 2012: USFS advised RAND that no additional analysis would be requested.
Late May, 2012: projected date for RAND to complete a quality assurance review of the final report in order to proceed with publication and the release of the document.
Below is RAND’s view of the history of the report, which they provided to us a few days ago:
In October 2009, the RAND Corporation competed for and was awarded a U.S. Forest Service contract to determine the number and mix of large aircraft the service requires to support U.S. wildland fire suppression. RAND completed the work in August 2010. The Forest Service and RAND agreed at that time that additional analyses were warranted in order to add details to RAND’s analytic model that were not originally requested.
RAND completed these additional analyses and briefed the results to Forest Service officials in May 2011. Afterwards, the Forest Service suggested that further analyses might be requested – not because RAND had failed to complete the planned analyses correctly, but because of a desire to re-examine the modeling assumptions RAND and the Forest Service had previously agreed to make. RAND and the Forest Service discussed the possibility of such analysis, but in February 2012 RAND was advised by the Forest Service that no additional analyses would be requested. At that time, RAND initiated a quality assurance review of the proposed final report in order to proceed with publication. We expect to release that publication by the end of May 2012.
Contrary to suggestions that may have appeared in online or other reporting, RAND does not consider its reports or briefings on this work to be proprietary or business-sensitive information. RAND distributes and disseminates its reports following completion of analysis and a thorough quality assurance review. Dissemination of the Forest Service report in question was delayed because of uncertainty as to whether the scope of the work would be expanded for additional analyses.
Andrew Morral,
Director of the RAND Homeland Security and Defense Center
On March 25 I sent emails to four Senators, one congresswoman, and the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. I took advantage of my right, and my responsibility, as a citizen to express my opinion on the pitiful state of our air tanker fleet. And I was not shy, which will not surprise the regular readers of Wildfire Today, about providing my analysis of how we got to this point, with the fleet only a shell of what it was 10 years ago, reduced by 75 percent. The land management agencies, and especially the U.S. Forest Service, own this debacle.
In addition to the Senate committee, which holds regular hearings in which wildfire issues are discussed, the recipients of my letters included Senators Ron Wyden and Lisa Murkowski.
It is probably a coincidence, but on March 27 and 28 numerous media outlets ran stories saying that four senators sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office asking the agency to review “the nation’s depleted fleet of firefighting aircraft and the remedies needed in the face of increasingly severe fire seasons.”
The senators that signed the letter were Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
If there are going to be any significant improvements in the air tanker fleet, it will have to be a political solution. The land management agencies, and especially the U.S. Forest Service, have proven that their strategy is “sit on our hands and make no tough decisions”.
If you have an opinion on this issue, let your senators and representatives know.
Here are some excerpts from the Associated Press article that appeared in newspapers and web sites around the country.
A group of Western senators says the U.S. Forest Service may not be moving quickly enough to build up and replace the fleet of aging planes that drop fire retardant on wildfires.
The senators asked the Government Accountability Office on Tuesday to evaluate whether the Forest Service has done a good job of analyzing the types and numbers of aircraft needed, the cheapest way to get them, new technologies, and where the planes will be based.
“Concerns have increasingly been raised that the federal agencies responsible for responding to wildland fires _ the Forest Service and four agencies in the Department of Interior _ do not have the appropriate number and mix of aircraft that will be needed for wildland fire suppression operations,” said the letter signed by Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.; Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M.; Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.
[…]
Last month, the Forest Service adopted a new strategy for replacing the fleet with newer, faster and more cost-effective planes.
[…]
Wyden complained that the Forest Service’s strategy is woefully lacking in specifics that would allow comparisons of different types and costs of aircraft so choices can be made. Meanwhile, a “perfect storm” is shaping up of dry weather and thick stands of forests that have not been thinned.
“Trying to get these tankers and the fleet ready for serious fire seasons seems to be almost the longest running battle since the Trojan war,” he said. “The West doesn’t have the luxury of just sitting around while everything goes up in smoke.”
P2V air tanker flying off into the sunset. Photo by Bill Gabbert
Stop me if you’ve heard this before.
The U.S. Forest Service is going to pay for still another air tanker study. The agency has issued a solicitation (AG-024B-S-12-0003) for private contractors to produce a report that:
…proposes at least three (3) alternatives that demonstrates the effectiveness of airtankers, heavy helicopters and water scoopers (defined in terms of aircraft use, aircraft characteristics, bases, contracts, costs, dispatching, mission objectives, tactics, strategy and communications).
This will be the sixth air tanker study in the last 17 years. Here is the list:
1995-1996: National Air Tanker Study (NATS)
2002: Blue Ribbon Panel report
2005: Wildland Fire Management Aerial Application Study
2007-2009: National Interagency Aviation Council, Interagency Aviation Strategy
2010: “An Examination of the United States Forest Service’s Need for Large Aviation”, by the Rand Corporation
2012: (this new study: “Aerial Firefighting Effective Use and Efficiency”)
In 2010 the USFS hired the Rand Corporation for an air tanker study that is being kept secret. The agency would not provide a copy of it even after we requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. They replied, saying “…the report is proprietary and confidential Rand business information and must be withheld in entirety under FOIA Exemption 4”. Their refusal letter went on to say: “The data, analysis, and conclusion in this report are not accurate or complete.” The letter also said they wanted “to protect against public confusion that might result from premature disclosure.” But, according to Jennifer Jones, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service in Boise, the agency paid the Rand Corporation $840,092. What a deal for Rand, for submitting an inaccurate and incomplete report.
The new study
This new report must be submitted within 154 days after the award, which makes it due as the 2012 fire season is winding down, probably in October or November.
The USFS ordered the writers of the 2010 Rand report to specifically exclude Very Large Air Tankers (VLAT) from their study. The new solicitation does not exclude them in writing, but neither does it include them. It requires the contractor to:
Define the utility and operational parameters of large airtankers (LAT), heavy helicopters (defined as Type 1), and water scoopers in accomplishing the variety of aviation missions supporting wildfire management…
The solicitation repeatedly refers to “large air tankers (LAT)” being studied, so it appears that again VLATs will not be included since they are not mentioned at all. Apparently the USFS thinks they already have enough information about the DC-10, 747, and any other air tankers that can carry 5 to 10 times more retardant than the air tankers we are currently using. In other words, “My mind is made up. Don’t confuse me with facts”.
The aborted study
This is at least the second solicitation for an air tanker study that has been issued since the 2010 Rand report. The USFS announced on August 15, 2011 that they intended to award a second contract, at that time a non-competitive contract, to the Rand Corporation to continue studying the air tanker issue. It seemed counter-intuitive that anyone would award another contract, especially a non-competitive contract, to a company that months before had produced a similar product the same buyer described as inaccurate and incomplete. Two weeks later the USFS canceled the solicitation, “due to the responses received expressing interest in this procurement”. The USFS has not announced that any contracting officers or high-level managers were disciplined or fired over that debacle.
Why pay for another air tanker study?
This additional air tanker study continues the analysis paralysis of the last 17 years. Continuing to kick the can farther down the road decade after decade allows our leadership in Boise and Washington D.C. to postpone the terrible ordeal of making a decision. Their air tanker strategy appears to be: “Make no tough decisions, but continue to order and pay for study after study until we retire. Then let someone else deal with it.”
And while Rome our forests and grasslands burn, the USFS leadership fiddles around, making only 11 or 12 large air tankers available on exclusive use contracts this fire season, 75 percent less than we had 10 years ago.
Another theory about why the USFS repeatedly pays for more studies is that they will keep doing it until an “unbiased” outside expert submits a result that the agency silently is hoping for. For example, the 2010 Rand report recommended an emphasis on scooper air tankers. But the USFS has never awarded an exclusive use contract for scoopers, unless the two that USFS Chief Tom Tidwell referred to when he testified before Congress on March 6 turn out to be exclusive use. (He may have been referring to the two CL-215 scoopers that the Bureau of Indian Affairs has had on contract.)
It is a common belief that USFS leaders have a strong bias against scoopers, even though many agencies have had great success with them, including: Los Angeles County, Minnnesota, North Carolina, Department of Interior, Canada, and several countries in Europe. According to the Rand report, when a suitable body of water is reasonably close, a scooper can deliver more gallons onto a fire and at a much lower annualized cost than a conventional air tanker or a large helicopter, especially when considering the cost of retardant, which ran $1.97 per gallon on the Fourmile fire in Colorado in 2010.
On a news program today someone described military officers as being decisive. My first thought was that effective managers and leaders in the fire service are decisive. (As proof, I offer the 2008 Sprint-Nextel commercial.) I’ve worked with hundreds of them. Then I thought about the inability of the U.S. Forest Service leadership to make a decision about a specific and detailed long term air tanker strategy.
The White House declares Open Government – except for the U. S. Forest Service?
I can’t find anything in this new 62-page solicitation that says the information submitted will remain private, secret, proprietary, or confidential — or, that the public is likely to be confused by its disclosure. I will be very interested to see if the U.S. Forest Service treats this report, like the Rand report, as secret as the information held in the vaults of the CIA. Mr. Tidwell and Tom Harbour, USFS Director of Fire and Aviation, should remember that the cover-up is worse than the original crime.
From the White House’s web site: http://www.whitehouse.gov/open
The principles of Open Government, as described by Mr. Tidwell’s boss, do not necessarily apply to the operations of the CIA, but the U.S. Forest Service is in a very different category.
We are curious to know who paid for the study, which was “prepared for [Colorado state] Senator Steve King”. A phone call to Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information was not immediately returned. Senator King has been very interested and vocal about the possible acquisition of firefighting aircraft for his state.
