Bill Gabbert, Author at Fire Aviation

Work continues on the reborn 747 Supertanker

Bill Gabbert6. November 201521. January 2016Fixed wing747, Global SuperTanker8 Comments

The 747-400BCF (Boeing Converted Freighter) that is being converted into the third generation Supertanker is in Victorville, California where scheduled maintenance, a C Check, is being performed.

747 Supertanker at C check — The 747 Supertanker undergoing a C Check and retardant system installation at Victorville, California. Photo by Scott Olson, VP of Maintenance with Global Supertanker.

That inspection process, which was about 60 percent complete on November 1, should wrap up in November, after which it will remain at the facility for installation of the constant flow retardant dispersal system.

The first version of the 19,600-gallon Supertanker that Evergreen built was in a 747-200 freighter with roll-on/roll-off retardant tanks mounted on pallets. Later they built another version in a non-freighter 747-100 which required a lighter-weight set of tanks and a system suitable for that aircraft. The original heavier tanks were put into storage at Marana, Arizona and for a while were lost after Evergreen went into bankruptcy.

747 Supertanker — The retardant tanks are on the left, and on the right are the rubber seals that will be installed between the tanks. Photos by Scott Olson, VP of Maintenance with Global Supertanker.

Bob Soelberg, the Senior VP and Program Manager for Global Supertanker told us:

Earlier this year, Global SuperTanker purchased all the physical assets and intellectual property related to the SuperTanker except the -100 airframe itself. The original, heavier set of tanks were located and shipped to Victorville along with the other tanks, controls and all spare parts. The heavier tanks will be installed in the -400 following minor modifications that will eliminate the RO/RO capability.

This latest, or third generation Supertanker (with more powerful engines) will have a new FAA registration number, N744ST, when the aircraft is painted following the C Check and the modifications required to install the tank system.

Some of the maintenance tasks being done at Victorville include:

testing for skin separation from the frames,
evaluation of the trailing edge flap system,
removing the APU, which has been inspected and shipped to the vendor for detailed inspection and AD compliance work.

One of the more complex tasks of installing the retardant system is cutting four 16-inch holes in the belly of the aircraft, and installing the nozzles, the connectors to the tanks, and a skin doubler system around the nozzles. The doubler, attached with approximately 1,300 rivets, will reinforce the structure around the nozzles and the connectors.

While this is being done, concurrent work involves modifications on the flight deck to install the monitoring and control panels used to activate the system.

Evergreen’s 747 SuperTanker first dropped on a fire in 2009 and last received Call When Needed contracts from CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service in 2013. When it received the CWN contract the aircraft had been sitting at Marana without engines and needed a million-dollar “C” check in addition to other maintenance. The company decided that with an expensive expedited “C” check and the other needed work, it could have been ready to fight fire about the time the 2013 western fire season was drawing to a close. And the CWN contract had no guarantee of any revenue. So Bob Soelberg, the Vice President of Evergreen Supertanker Services at the time, said they would wait until the next year to get the maintenance done. A few months later, bankruptcy, and the company ceased to exist.

Jim Wheeler, President and CEO of Global SuperTanker Services which will be located in Colorado Springs, said they have hired most of the core personnel that worked on the SuperTanker program at Evergreen, including Mr. Soelberg who managed the program there. The Chief Pilot is Cliff Hale who has previous experience as an air tanker pilot.

The retardant is forced from the aircraft by compressed air using the same principle seen in the transportable Modular Airborne FireFighting System (MAFFS) that can be installed in a few hours into C-130s operated by the military. Unlike the newest version of the MAFFS2 which has two on-board air compressors, the SuperTanker will rely on suitable air compressors to be pre-positioned at an air tanker base. When MAFFS are deployed they meet up with one of the six specialized air compressor systems managed by the U.S. Forest Service that can refill the air tanks in 14 minutes when the on-board compressors fail to work properly, which is not uncommon according to a MAFFS crew member we talked with.

In August Mr. Wheeler told us they will consider installing an air compressor in a year or so.

Articles on Fire Aviation tagged “747”.
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Air tankers assist firefighters on the Gibraltar Fire in southern California

Bill Gabbert5. November 201521. January 2016Fixed wingCalifornia, Gibraltar Fire4 Comments

A massive aerial attack helped contain the Gibraltar Fire north of Santa Barbara, California.

During a three-hour period the morning the fire started on October 29, air tankers delivered 32 loads of fire retardant.

The fire burned 21 acres between Montecito Peak and Cold Springs Saddle.

(UPDATED November 6, 2015:)

Below is a photo of the Gibraltar Fire taken by Air Attack 07.

Lawsuit accuses CAL FIRE of keeping pilots’ grieving families ignorant of death benefits

Bill Gabbert3. November 201521. January 2016Fixed wingCAL FIRE, California, LODD, PSOB, scandal

Families of firefighting pilots killed in the line of duty in California have filed a lawsuit charging that officials in the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) intentionally misinformed them of their entitlement to death benefits.

According to the Sacramento Bee,

They “intentionally misrepresented to the survivors that the only available death benefit they might apply for was those available from” the federal government, the claim states. “Cal Fire executives made these representations knowing them to be false, and at the time they were well aware of the existence of benefits required to be paid under (state law).”

The lawsuit lists 14 pilots that were killed while fighting fires in California. Two of those were employees of DynCorp which has a contract to provide pilots and maintenance for the state’s S-2 air tankers. The other 12 worked for air tanker companies under contract to the U.S. Forest Service.

If a federal firefighter is killed in the line of duty, their survivors receive over $300,000 from the federal government under the Public Safety Officers’ Benefit (PSOB) program. The amount varies from year to year. However the PSOB denies benefits to firefighters that are not regular employees; contract or AD employees are not eligible.

The seven AD crew members that died in the 2008 helicopter crash in northern California were not eligible. The four AD firefighters that were killed in the crash of their van on the way to a fire in Colorado in 2002 were not eligible. Contract air tanker pilots are not eligible.

Families of deceased ground and aerial firefighters have fought for these benefits for years, unsuccessfully.

The lawsuit claims that CAL FIRE encouraged the pilots’ survivors to apply for the PSOB program without telling them that the California Public Resources Code requires that the state provide to them an amount equal to the PSOB benefit plus funds equal to the annual salary of a mid-career CAL FIRE firefighter.

Another interesting section of that law states that the provisions…

…shall be applicable irrespective of whether the department contracts directly with the pilot or contracts with a third party that employs or contracts with pilots.

The attorney for the lawsuit, Paul Goyette, is hanging his hat on that provision, saying it applies even to pilots working for a company that has a contract with the USFS if the fatality occurred in California. The state has a written agreement with the USFS to share firefighting resources, including aircraft.

Below is an excerpt from an article in the Sacramento Bee:

…The complaint contends that [CAL FIRE Director Ken] Pimlott and his No. 2, Janet Barentson, knew that state law requires Cal Fire pay death benefits when a contracted fire pilot is killed in the line of duty. At some point, Assistant Chief Mike Ramirez, an administrator at the department’s Ione Academy who also worked with deceased firefighters’ families, discovered the law and brought it up with both superiors, the lawsuit says.
“Defendants Pimlott and Barentson ordered Assistant Chief Ramirez not to disclose the existence of (the law) to any (of the families),” the court filing states, and threatened that “his career would be placed in jeopardy” if he disobeyed. Meanwhile, they ordered Ramirez to continue pressing federal officials to pay benefits, even though it was clear such efforts were “futile,” the lawsuit states.
Cal Fire spokeswoman Janet Upton responded with a two-sentence email to The Sacramento Bee late Friday: “No. This allegation is not true.”

Mr. Ramirez was one of the CAL FIRE employees working at their Ione fire academy that was fired after an instructor there, Battalion Chief Orville Fleming, arrested after a 16-day manhunt, was charged with and later convicted of the murder of his mistress. That investigation uncovered allegations of sexual misconduct and inappropriate alcohol use at the Ione facility. Eventually 16 CAL FIRE employees either resigned, were fired, or were disciplined. All of the disciplined employees were replaced at the academy.

The graphic below is from the Sacramento Bee.

Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Dick and Kirk.

Aerial ignition by drone

Bill Gabbert30. October 2015Drone/UAV/UASaerial ignition, drone, plastic sphere dispenser10 Comments

Typically when aerial ignition is used to light a prescribed fire or a burnout operation on a wildfire, it is done with a large plastic sphere dispenser mounted in a conventional helicopter, as in the photo below.

Sitgreaves Complex Fire — Dennis Kirkley of Kaibab Helitack loads the plastic sphere dispenser (ping pong ball machine) with plastic spheres. Grand Canyon Helitack’s A-Star was used to do aerial ignition on the Sitgreaves Complex in northern Arizona August 8, 2014. Photo by Tom Story.

The University of Nebraska is developing an unmanned aerial vehicle that can use plastic spheres to ignite fires. What could possibly go wrong?

Below is an article from the university written by Leslie Reed.

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University of Nebraska drone aerial ignition fire — Sebastian Elbaum (from left), Dirac Twidwell and Carrick Detweiler have developed a new patent for setting range fires with small drones. The drone injects a liquid into plastic spheres to start a delayed fiery process that allows the balls to fall to the ground before igniting. Elbaum and Detweiler are holding flaming tennis balls similar to those carried by the drones. University of Nebraska photo by Craig Chandler.

A new drone under development at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln could change the way wildfires are fought – and encourage the use of prescribed burns for conservation purposes.

The Unmanned Aerial System for Fire Fighting, or UAS-FF, is under development by a multidisciplinary team of UNL experts in drone technology, fire ecology, conservation and public policy.

The Great Plains, California and other locations around the world are seeing an increasing number of bigger and more intense wildfires in recent years, said Dirac Twidwell, a team member and a range ecology expert and faculty member in the Department of Agronomy and Horticulture.

Twidwell said it’s a trend that results from land management practices, including a decline in human use of fire for ecosystem management, as well as exotic species invasions, drought and climate change.

The aerial robot would have the ability to ignite and monitor fires in remote areas. Novel technology would allow it to operate in harsh environments with limited supervision, enhancing the capabilities of fire management personnel.

“The idea is to provide a safe mechanism for people to perform fire management tasks with less risk and higher efficiency,” said Sebastian Elbaum, a computer science and engineering professor and drone researcher.

The team has successfully performed indoor tests on a prototype. Carrick Detweiler, a faculty member in the computer science and engineering department, said the researchers have been working with the Federal Aviation Administration and hope to have authorization from the FAA and fire departments for a field test of the fire-starting drone as early as March.

“Unmanned aerial devices have the potential to carry out key resource management strategies and could help us deal with something as big as the international increase in severe wildfires,” Twidwell said.

Prescribed burns, where grasslands are burned off according to a predetermined plan, are widely recognized as an effective conservation tool that eliminates invasive species, restores native plants and reduces the risk of wildfire. However, they are underutilized because of perceived safety concerns.

A recent study from Twidwell’s lab shows prescribed fires are actually less less risky to landowners than other commonly used management techniques, and using drones would further reduce the risks posed by lighting prescribed burns by hand and using all-terrain vehicles and suppression vehicles in rough and remote areas.

Many federal agencies use helicopters to ignite such areas, but it’s too costly to use helicopters on private lands.

Elbaum and Detweiler built upon their prior research as co-founders of the Nebraska Intelligent Mobile Unmanned Systems, or NIMBUS, Laboratory to design aerial robots small enough to fit in a firefighter’s backpack, yet smart enough to safely interact with the environment

The drones carry a cargo of ping pong-like balls filled with [a chemical]. Before being dropped through a chute, each ball is manipulated and injected with [another chemical], creating a flame after several seconds. A similar method now is used to start fires for conservation purposes with helicopters and hand-held launchers, Detweiler said.

“We wanted to use proven technology that the prescribed-burn community is already familiar with,” he said.

The drones would have the ability to drop the balls in a precise pattern over the landscape – on the perimeters and interior of a rectangular plot, for example. Detweiler said the robots could be programmed so they don’t fly into areas that are too hot or windy for safe use.

The team is seeking grant funding to develop the next generation prototype with more sophisticated sensing and actuation capabilities, including the ability to operate as a swarm.

Other team members are Craig Allen, research professor and director of Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research, and Lisa Pytlik Zillig, research associate professor at UNL’s Public Policy Center. James Higgins, a mechanical engineering graduate student, designed the prototype’s mechanics, while Christian Laney, a computer science and engineering undergraduate student, was responsible for the control electronics.

The drones could be an especially effective tool in battling Eastern Red Cedar, an invasive tree species that some experts view as one of the region’s most serious ecological threats. It causes extinctions of many grassland plants and birds, collapses forage production important to the beef industry and is contributing to dangerous wildfires.

Detweiler and Elbaum said the drones also might be used in place of manned aircraft and hotshot teams of firefighters dropped by parachute in some wildfire-fighting situations.

“What we’re doing is supporting the expert and the user in the field,” Elbaum said. “The drone and the operator work together to make the job safer, more efficient and cheaper.” “

Photos of the Be-200 air tankers in Indonesia

Bill Gabbert28. October 201528. October 2015Fixed wingBe-200, Indonesia2 Comments

We found these photos on Twitter of the Russian-made Be-200 amphibious scooping air tankers that have been deployed to assist with the wildfires in Indonesia. Two of them arrived in the country October 21, 2015.

Using a drone to inspect a USFS bridge

Bill Gabbert27. October 2015Drone/UAV/UASAlaska, UAS

The U.S. Forest Service used an Unmanned Aerial System as one of the tools in a very complex inspection of the longest clear span glue-laminated timber truss pedestrian bridge in North America.

Colorado’s Multi Mission aircraft enhance firefighter safety

Bill Gabbert26. October 201526. October 2015Fixed wingColorado, Holy Grail, multi-mission, Pilatus PC-12

Colorado MMA — One of the two Multi Mission Aircraft owned by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. CDFPC photo.

(This article first appeared on Wildfire Today, October 26, 2015.)

The two Multi Mission Aircraft (MMA) recently purchased by the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control could be significant progress toward what we have called the Holy Grail of Firefighter Safety — knowing the real time location of a wildfire and firefighters.

The Pilatus PC-12 single-engine aircraft have sensors on board combined with communications and software capabilities that can provide a version of the Holy Grail to office-bound fire managers as well as firefighters on the ground.

Operating well above firefighting air tankers and helicopters, the MMAs have two cameras, color and infrared. The color camera provides video similar to that used by news helicopters orbiting over a wildfire in California. The heat-detecting infrared sensor can map the location of large fires and can find small ones that can be difficult or impossible to spot from the air using just human eyesight. The cameras can be used to monitor the locations of firefighters on the ground, however their identities or resource designators would not be automatically provided.

The suite of communications and software, called Colorado Wildfire Information Management System (CO-WIMS), transmits the data from the sensors in a usable form to a network where it can be accessed by authorized personnel in offices, fire apparatus, and firefighters on the ground with hand held devices.

Half of the Holy Grail appears to be provided with the MMAs — the real time or near-real time location of the fire. The other half, knowing the location of firefighters, can be determined to a certain extent, but only if the equipment operator devotes a significant amount of their time using the cameras to follow personnel and equipment on the ground. On a small fire this could be done while still maintaining the big picture of the spread of the fire, but on large incidents with hundreds or thousands of resources, it would be impossible. However, if a crew reported that they were in a dangerous situation (think Yarnell Hill Fire, where 19 firefighters died), perhaps the operator could use the infrared and visual sensors to locate them and relay that information to resources on the ground or in the air that could provide assistance.

The wildland firefighting agencies still need to adopt hardware and communications systems that can track every piece of apparatus, crew, and any resource operating alone on the fireline. That information could then be accessed on a display that could be monitored, at a minimum, by a Safety Officer, and others as needed; eventually by fire supervisors with hand held devices.

Some of the air attack aircraft under federal contract either have or will have video capabilities similar to that on Colorado’s MMAs, but a system needs to be utilized by the U.S. Forest Service and other agencies that can make it usable to firefighters on the ground. Colorado has provided a template proving it can be done.

The CO-WIMS being used now by Colorado to provide real time intelligence is a huge step forward. While the state is far from developing a comprehensive organization for responding to and managing wildland fires, they deserve kudos for what they have already implemented with the MMAs and CO-WIMS.

It’s kind of like a homeless person being given a pair of $500 shoes. It’s a nice addition to their wardrobe, but there is still more that needs to be done.

More information: A .pdf version of a DCFPC presentation about the MMA and CO-WIMS at the October 21-23, 2015 Colorado State Fire Chiefs Fire Leadership Conference.

The following videos demonstrate some of the intelligence gathering capabilities of the MMA:

Continue reading “Colorado’s Multi Mission aircraft enhance firefighter safety”

Smokejumpers attend workshop for ram air canopy transition

Bill Gabbert24. October 201519. April 2016Smokejumpersram-air, Smokejumpers2 Comments

The U.S. Forest Service Region 1 smokejumpers (map of R1) just finished a week long workshop, part of the transition from the round parachute canopy to the “square” CR-360 ram air. Jumpers from Missoula, Grangeville, and West Yellowstone completed 140 jumps in three and a half days. During the workshop one group collected flight data using data recorders, and the other group went through a training progression in order to get familiar with the canopy. Not all participants are pictured here for the last flight.

Via smokejumpers_on_ig. Photo credit: T. Navarro