3 Hotel Juliet air attack we're gonna go ahead and bring this SEAT in and after he drops
you see the red the stuff fly you'll be clear back in.
Tanker 883 you're clear for the drop when ready.
Line is clear.
Operations, air attack.
It's about 60 acres now Brad and it's still really active on the head making a nice run.
The right flank is fairly active as well.
Just started putting some retardant on the right flank, the engines are making good time,
I got the helicopter working as well, you know, and it's pretty likely that it's gonna
bump that rest area up there and also make it all the way to Blacks Creek Road would
be big picture.
I'm giving them overall situational awareness of what's going on this fire because I have
a good view.
I'm not dictating tactics to them at all and I don't like to do that as an air attack unless
they ask for help.
If they're at a loss, that's not my job to run the fire, it's the IC's job.
My job is to put red stuff and wet stuff on the ground and give them situational awareness.
Lead 47, Dead Horse air attack, we're at 30.06 on the altimeter.
We're at 6500, you're cleared in at 5500, bringing the SEATs in at 5000 and 899 is inbound
now.
Well, if you can imagine a carousel or multiple carousels stacked on top of each other, that's
a lot of what it looks like from the air attack's perspective, in chunks.
As an air attack, I am at the top of the stack and reason being, we have a better view from
the top and we can coordinate all the aerial resources coming in and going out but mostly
it's just for the view, is why we're up at the top and also to give room to the incoming
airtankers which are the next down in the stack, so they come in at, you know, about
1500 feet usually above ground level, depending on terrain.
And then when they go into tactical they they're down at about 1000 feet for the drop.
Air attack always goes clockwise, it's easier to keep an eye on everybody if you're going
the opposite direction but everyone in the same altitudes have to go the same direction
for obvious reasons.
So it'd be like going around a roundabout, having two-way traffic on it, just wouldn't
work.
So we'll race track them so they're all following each other and that way it makes it easier
and more effective for us because we can bring them in, do one target description, all the
tankers hear it and we can just have them all tag and extend and put in an extremely
long line fast and efficiently.
500 foot AGL level consists of rotor-wing and also that's where we're going to drop
the airtankers and the Lead when we're on final.
We'll drop from that 500 foot level down into about 100 feet off the ground a lot of times
to drop the tankers and then that's where the coordination with the helicopters is really
crucial to keep them out.
But normally when we're doing our patterns the helicopters are free to roam 500 feet
AGL until we're getting ready to drop in a certain area then we'll clear them out.
A lot of coordination there below 500 foot level.
An air attack's job is to coordinate the whole stack, so it's pretty busy.
Also in that 500 foot realm lies the terrain and it also lies the hazards; a lot of time
the towers, the power lines, and HAM operating radio antennas sticking up off of houses.
I've come pretty close to those in smoky environments before doing low-level lead plane stuff.
We had to go look at where we were going to drop right next to a house when we're doing
structure protection and there's a great big giant antenna sticking up 40 feet off the
roof.
Mostly it's power lines though.
A lot of the power lines we can't see, especially in timber, there's timber around, they're
completely camouflaged to us.
Or wires across ravines is another huge one, those are almost invisible a lot of times
if you're in big canyons.
They're putting in more and more windmills now and the windmills are scary enough but
they have small weather stations before they put in the big windmills, they'll have them
scattered all over the place, they're around 100, 150 feet a lot of them and they're pretty
much invisible.
It's just a small pole with a little propeller up on top, enough to ruin your day.
Really the air attack has to rely on the ground personnel a lot to pick up a lot of those
hazards down in that 500 foot range so it's very helpful for the ground folks to give
us a heads-up on anything they see, we appreciate it.
Air attack pilots are contract pilots AND their main job is to fly the airplane and
listen to air traffic control and they're in the pilot role.
You know, my main role as an air attack is division supervisor; I'm a flying division
supervisor.
And lead plane pilots are all federal agency pilots.
The role of the lead is to lead the airtankers.
They have a capability of low-level so they can go show the airtankers exactly where they
want them to drop.
A lot of times on the ground folks see the lead come over and everybody will scamper
off but it's actually a show-me run meaning that we're just showing the airtanker while
he's up at 1500 feet AGL still, with a good view, where we want to do
the drop.
At the same time the air attack is clearing the line it should at least prompt you to
get on air-to-ground, check your radio, maybe you took it off scan or something, and start
paying attention because there's going to be some mud in the air pretty quick.
I could describe ASM and it'll sum it up, it's aerial supervision module.
You've got a lead plane with an air attack in it so we're capable of doing both lead
and air attack at the same time so we're doing a dual role.
Whenever you hear, "Bravo", whichever number it is, that means that they actually have
a right seater and they're capable of doing air attack, they're in an ASM role.
Generally in an air attack aircraft we have two victors, victor being a VHF-AM radio,
commonly known as air-to-air, and on busier fires we'll have an air-to-air rotor-wing,
so a separate frequency for the helicopters.
And that's just air-to-air, that has nothing to do with air-to ground.
It has an importance too, for an air attack, what I'm listening to is fixed-wing, rotor-wing,
meaning we don't want to bend any metal, that's our number one job as an air attack, you don't
want to bend any metal, meaning have an aircraft collide.
So then the next step would be air-to-ground which is huge coordinating with the ground,
looking out for their safety and letting them know if they have any issues coming up.
So generally, there will be two FMs: air-to-ground and then dispatch and if they're hitting us
with a lot of stuff while we're doing the transition, getting relief air attack, that's
when you hear a lot of, "stand by for air attack.
Stand by for air attack."
Not trying to be rude or short, we just have a lot of radio traffic going on.
Someday just set up six radios when it's really busy and sit there and try and pick up what's
going on each radio and you'll see how busy it is and that's normal.
That's normal busy for us and your ear gets tuned to it after a while.
We're not trying to put you off is what I'm saying, when we don't answer the radio right
away.
And I'll remember and I'll call you back, it might even be five minutes but I'll make
a note on my kneeboard to call back Division Alpha or whoever it is.
When there's a tanker coming in, that's a busy time for them because that's when they're
picking up all the other airtankers that are on scene in their airspace and their level
of the stack, they're looking for everybody there so they're picking them up and they're
all talking to each other.
So that's on the fixed-wing Victor.
We're directly communicating with helibases, air attack, or ASM and we're trying to coordinate
with them, fuel for the helicopters, meaning how long they have on-scene.
That way we don't have all the helicopters go back for fuel at the same time in the heat
of the battle and we have no buckets or you know, helitankers or anything.
So there's a lot of coordination with helibase and making sure everything runs smooth, it's
just one more level of the radio traffic that's going on.
We've been seeing more and more VLAT operations: Very Large Airtankers.
And in my personal opinion, I've dropped them quite a few times now and they're very effective
in the right terrain, right area.
And with those you have to clear out the airspace as well, you have to have quite a buffer so
what we'll usually do is drop whatever we have on scene, bring the VLAT in and we'll
hold the other aircraft that are inbound at the same time at an IP, drop the VLAT, and
then bring in the rest of the aircraft.
They're quick, efficient, professional pilots, just like the rest of our airtanker fleet.
They're all use to the fire game, especially after the last few years, everybody has been
getting plenty of practice.
But just be heads-up with the VLAT, you might be seeing them.