Jon Large was coming back from a fire in British Columbia on July 26, 2017 with a Parks Canada team and while at a debrief in Kamloops grabbed these photos. Thanks Jon!
Tag: T-44
Helena Air Tanker Base has been busy
(Originally published at 9:33 a.m. MDT July 31, 2017)
Jeff Wadekamper, the Airport Director at the Helena Regional Airport, sent us this picture, and said, “Last weekend we had 7 tankers here (2 Neptune BAE 146’s, 2 Neptune P2V’s, 2 SEATS, and the DC-10 #912)”.
In this photo taken July 23 we can see two BAe-146’s (Tankers 02 and 15), one P2V (T-44), a DC-10 (T-912), and a Single Engine Air Tanker.
Thanks Jeff!
Introduction to the Redmond Tanker Base
Above: a 47-second video showing the aircraft at the Redmond Tanker Base on June 13, 2016.
Clouds were hovering just above the ridges bordering the valley around the Redmond, Oregon airport when I was there on Monday, June 13. There was a chance of rain across the entire Pacific Northwest and there were no orders for the four large air tankers staged at the Redmond Air Tanker Base.
Eric Graff, who has been the base manager for the last 12 years, said they had been busy in recent days sending tankers to fires in Oregon and northern California. They had pumped 165,000 gallons of fire retardant into tankers so far this fire season.
Working with Mr. Graff on Monday was Cynthia Buehner, in her third season as timekeeper for the base, and summer seasonal, Marissa Kraweczak, whose previous experience before this year was on the Zigzag Hotshots.
Also at the base was the normal contingent of pilots and mechanics for the four tankers that were on the ramp — three Aeroflite RJ85s, and one Neptune Aviation P2V. One lead plane was also on scene.
I asked Mr. Graff if dispatchers proactively tried to group aircraft from the same company together at a tanker base, and he said no, it was not intentional. Aeroflite recognized that they had three of their tankers and crews at Redmond and called a meeting, with executives flying in on the company’s Pilatus PC12. The state of Colorado recently purchased two PC12s to use as intelligence gathering and communications platforms, calling them “multi-mission aircraft”.
Other fire-related operations at the Redmond Airport include the Redmond Smokejumpers, the Northwest Fire Training Center, the Redmond Hotshots, and the Regional Air Group which supplies pilots for the jumpers and lead planes.
Blown tire on air tanker closes runway at Redmond Airport
Above: Air Tanker 44, with a blown tire, on the runway at Redmond. Photo by Redmond Fire Rescue.
A runway at the Redmond Airport closed for approximately an hour June 9 after Air Tanker 44, a Korean War vintage P2V, blew a tire while landing after reporting problems with the landing gear. The tanker had been working the Akawana Fire in Oregon. There were no injuries.
In 2010 Air Tanker 44 had a problem with the hydraulic system which caused a brake failure upon landing at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport (JeffCo) in Colorado. It slid off the end of the runway, but thankfully both pilots walked away.
Because of an ongoing paving project, there is only one functioning runway at Redmond, so all landing and takeoff activity was shut down, including commercial aircraft and tankers assisting with the Owyhee Canyon and Akawana fires. The firefighting aircraft were diverted to Klamath Falls for reloading and refueling.
Below is an excerpt from an article at KBND:
…Redmond City Manager Keith Witcosky was there. He tells KBND News the emergency call initially came in just before 12:30 p.m. that a plane’s landing gear wasn’t working. “It was coming from the fire near Camp Sherman. When it came into view the landing gear was down, and it stayed down. However, as it reached about halfway across the runway, the left rear tire blew; so it skidded and began to bank a little bit to the right, but the pilots did a great job at keeping it straight. There were no injuries, no fire, no smoke; but, just a totally destroyed tire.”
…No word on how many tankers were impacted by the 50-minute closure, but Witcosky says they are busy at the Redmond Airport, right now. “We were out here for a half an hour, waiting for that plane to come in and we saw three tankers go in and out, within about a half an hour to an hour…
It is unknown if the blown tire was related to the problem with the landing gear, but we are aware of at least three crashes or accidents caused by problems with the P2V landing gear or hydraulic system — T-44 at JeffCo in 2010, T-55 at Minden in 2012, and T-48 at Fresno in 2014.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Kristin.
Photos of air tankers on the Lowell Fire
Matthew Rhodes sent us these excellent photos of air tankers dropping on the Lowell Fire. He said he took them July 25 near Gold Run in Placer County. Thanks Matthew!
The Lowell Fire has burned 1,700 acres 46 air miles northeast of Sacramento, California, west of Interstate 80.
First mud of 2015 at Medford
The Air Tanker Base at Medford Oregon pumped their first loads of retardant in 2015, Tuesday, June 9.
Tankers 44 and 131 dropped on a fire across the state border on the Six Rivers National Forest in northwest California, while T-101 dropped water instead of retardant in the Soda Mountain Wilderness in southwest Oregon. Apparently the land managers did not want retardant in the wilderness area, or perhaps it was near a lake or a stream where they didn’t want the red stuff.
During the course of the last couple of days, Tankers 45 and 131 spent some time at Redding, California, T-105 worked a fire in Oregon, and CAL FIRE’s S-2Ts were busy in northern California.
Thanks and a tip of the hat go out to Harry and Jerry.
Tankers 43 and 44 at Redding
We shot some photos of two of Neptune’s P2Vs in Redding, August 7.
