Long, Hot Summer

From 14,500 feet you begin to notice the smell. At first, you scan the panel for trouble, check the aircraft's vital engine and electrical indications, and look for smoke in the cockpit. Is that an electrical smell? Something smoldering in the baggage area? Then, through the windshield ahead, you see the reason for concern: a huge towering column of cumulus, rising from a tinder-dry green forest, ancient bones being consumed in an instant of fury and flame.

Down below in the heat, smoke, and moderate turbulence is a small aerial army of dedicated men and women flying mostly old airplanes, trying to protect people's property, lives, and what is left of the forest. By any measure, this is a family by fire.

Capt. Don Fair wrestles a 97,000-pound Douglas DC–6B built in 1958 to within a hundred feet of those dry burning trees. A 16-year veteran pilot for Conair, an Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada, company, Fair opens the Douglas' 12 bomb bay doors in a carefully timed sequence to deliver fire retardant to the right places. "There's a bit of science to it," he admits. Too low and the concentration can knock down trees or injure people; too high and the concentration is not sufficient to do any good.

Conair is one of 19 contractors to the United States Forest Service (USFS) fighting an overwhelming number of fires this summer. At this writing, more than 1.4 million acres of the West have been consumed by fire. It's the worst fire season in more than a decade.

Although Fair's old airliner once carried passengers in grand style and comfort for Swissair, it is now gutted clean with bare zinc-chromate interior walls and a 3,000-gallon tank crudely grafted to the Douglas' underbelly. Fair's DC–6 is one of six owned by his company. It is joined by other contractors' DC–4s, P–3s, PB4Ys, S2s, P2V Neptunes, C–130s, and even some SEATS—single-engine air tankers—which are crop dusters such as Ag Cats, Dromaders, and Ag Tractors.

Fair is a former crop duster, as are several of the pilots who do this work, and he seems to really enjoy the "good" that he and his first officer, Wynn Atchison, do with their DC–6, built when Ike was president. "We're like firefighters or police, in that we like to do good," he says.

The hazards of this flying are real. There are often power lines in the canyons, rendered nearly invisible by the ever-present smoke. Former burned areas commonly have blackened dead snags jutting 20 to 30 feet above the forest canopy, waiting for the pilot's moment of inattention or an ill-timed downdraft. Turbulence is a big player, too, as a contributing factor in both pilot fatigue and aircraft control. Then there's the traffic, with smoke-jumper aircraft, helicopters, air-attack supervisors, and lead planes all working the same fire. The smoky, high-density traffic environment requires careful vigilance by all players. Because of the extreme volume of air traffic in the West this summer, military AWACS—airborne warning and control system—aircraft were called in to handle ATC chores.

Fair's old Douglas looks pretty good for an airplane in its fifth decade of service. Smeared along the lower aft belly of the aircraft is a thick layer of iron-red goo, comprised mostly of nitrate salts, sulfates, phosphates, and water. It is not correct to call this slurry or borate. Nor is it correct to think of the red mixture as an extinguishing agent; rather, it is properly called long-term retardant and is spread in long, measured swaths to help control the fire's direction and to protect property and people—especially firefighters. Iron oxide is added to color the mixture so that pilots and spotters can see it from above. When burned, the mix creates a gas that will not support combustion. "You don't put out fires with a tanker, you just buy the ground guys time," Fair points out.

Over the years pilots of the bombers have learned—often the hard way—how to best deploy this chemical to do the most good without putting the crews of the airplanes in more danger than necessary. They've learned, for example, how to safely herd a heavily laden bomber in high density altitude environments; they've learned to avoid dropping the retardant up-canyon; and learned that "throwing" the retardant, as was once commonly done, doesn't work—and increases the risk tremendously.

Capt. Gene Wahlstrom is another one of those called to the frontlines when the summer heats up. He flies a P2V Neptune for Neptune Aviation Services of Missoula, Montana. Also a former crop duster, Wahlstrom is quite fond of his aircraft, a former submarine hunter, and gives it good marks for visibility, reliability, and the ability to drop 22,000 pounds of retardant on a directed spot, then beat feet to the tanker base at 200 to 210 knots. He is proud to point out that the Neptune he flies is well-maintained, too. "You can't ask for better maintenance," he says. Surprisingly, the Neptune's R-3350 radials usually make their 1,700-hour TBO, something the Navy could never seem to accomplish when it operated the type.

The P2's 3,000-pound-thrust J-34 jet engines, mounted on wing pods, are used for only takeoff and during the bombing run. On short final to the forest, Wahlstrom spools these engines to 101 percent, then to METO (maximum except takeoff) power for the run. They are then shut down for cruise, and small hydraulically actuated doors cover the intakes to reduce drag.

Like many of the members of this family, Wahlstrom has served in other capacities during his 22-year career, including a five-year stint flying smoke jumpers for the USFS and another as a lead pilot for the forest service. He began in one of the now-retired B–17s. "Flying the old military aircraft is challenging but lots of fun," he says, "kind of like flying something out of the aviation archives." He brightens when he describes "witnessing Mother Nature at its most awesome" and talks reverently about once observing flames leaping to 300 feet in the Bob Marshall Wilderness fire. "Now that's inspiring," he says.

Interestingly, Wahlstrom's airplane, Tanker 07, is assigned only to him. When Wahlstrom gets a day off, another crew doesn't jump into the seat and continue the fight; all contractors park their airplanes for maintenance on crew days off. This has gone a long way toward improving safety and reliability.

Pat Norbury is one of the few women in the family by fire. The sole woman pilot among 60 working for the USFS, Norbury flies smoke jumpers in one of five Sherpas, two turbine DC–3s converted by Basler Flying Service, or in one of the service's two Twin Otters. She flies at 1,500 feet above the forest to drop jumpers, but her favorite mission is dropping supplies and equipment to firefighters from 150 to 200 feet.

Air attack is the job given to Willis Curdy of the USFS. He flies a Cessna 206, fitted with a FLIR—forward looking infrared radar—for seeing through the smoke. A former schoolteacher, Curdy comes to the job with 30 years' experience as a smoke jumper and firefighter—all USFS air attack pilots are trained firefighters first, pilots second. Curdy flies a high 1,500-foot perch above the fire, creating strategy and tactics, then coordinates the activities of the bombers; lead planes, usually USFS pressurized Barons; and smoke-jumper aircraft similar to Norbury's. He performs much like a forward air controller in the military.

All of these pilots are considered a national resource and thus are always on the go—in Orlando today and Reno or Missoula tomorrow, depending on the needs of the forest service. As one pilot dryly put it, "We really don't have a life."

The aerial firefighting industry is maturing and becoming more sophisticated. Many of the operators are converting to turbine equipment for greater reliability and safety. Nowadays, the bombers and smoke-jumper aircraft are called to the designated hot spot with precise GPS coordinates. Some of the aircraft have simple Apollo units; others have the luxury of a Garmin GNS 430. Training is now conducted more frequently and borrows heavily from airline-style cockpit resource management. Wahlstrom, for example, flies to American Airlines once a year for training on its old Boeing 707 simulator. Newbury trains at SimuFlite or FlightSafety International. This has improved the industry safety record tremendously; at one time, four to five airplanes were lost each year in the business. But in recent years, the industry has lost only two airplanes: a Neptune two years ago and a SEAT this summer because of an engine failure.

You hear the term evolution of the industry a lot when talking to these pilots, and you are reminded that these professionals are in it for the long haul. "The risk is what you make it," says Wahlstrom. "If you want to take the drop with smoke across your path, you may. But you can also say no." There is no repercussion from refusing the drop if the pilot pushing the release button judges the risk too great.

When you talk to these people, you are struck by their dedication to the mission of fighting fires. Fair proudly tells of one particular fire that grew out of control and trapped a group of firefighters in its maw. As the frightened men and women watched the fire advance, Fair and his first officer coated the only egress road and surrounding forest with retardant, allowing a route of escape for the grateful firefighters.

A DC–6 crew I watched at the Missoula tanker base finished a long duty day with nearly six hours of flight time. That's not six hours of high-altitude cruise with the autopilot on, monitoring the GPS—that's six hours of mostly hand-flying down in the trees, sweating; that's eight reloadings and several refuelings, performed by the flight crew; that's flying to and from the site in heavy smoke and moderate turbulence ("there's always turbulence in these fires," one pilot reminded me). That's also eight takeoffs in an airplane whose engines require antidetonation injection, a water-alcohol mixture sprayed into the combustion chambers to allow the engines to be pushed beyond the point where they would normally detonate. This enables them to produce enough horsepower to lift a heavily laden, aging airliner from a hot runway.

In a fire season when pilots might normally fly 150 hours fighting fires, most have passed twice that number of hours, and the season is far from over. One pilot told me that it would end only when the first fall snows reclaimed the backcountry.

When I prepared to leave Missoula, fires from the nearby Bitterroot Wilderness Area filled the early morning skies with dense smoke. Ash fell like soft rain, coating my red airplane with the bleached bones of ancient trees. It was a lousy day to fly; visibility was only a couple of miles, and the tops were reported at around 13,500 feet. Yet I took much comfort in knowing of the family that fights those battles down in the smoke.

The forest service is looking for a few good pilots. The entry level for the Cessna 206 air attack pilot is 1,500 hours total time, and 500 hours multi time. Fire experience is a real plus. It also has an aviation career development program for those who are interested. For additional information, visit the USFS Web site ( www.fs.fed.us). Links to additional information can be found on AOPA Online ( www.aopa.org/pilot/links/links0010.shtml). Michael Maya Charles is a contributor to Pilot.

If you plan to fly in areas with fires, contact the nearest flight service station for details on TFRs—temporary flight restrictions. This special airspace is set aside to protect firefighting pilots from other aircraft that might transit the area.

TFRs are, in effect, restricted areas and pilots are prohibited from flying inside their boundaries unless authorized by ATC. They change daily as fire conditions dictate and are usually defined by a radial and distance from a nearby VOR. Sometimes TFRs are defined by latitude/longitude coordinates, making their determination a bit more difficult for pilots.

When you get your DUATS weather briefing be sure to look (or ask your briefer to check if you go through FSS) for any TFRs that might apply to your route of flight. — MMC