January has morphed into February and with it sees the return of the Southern Plains winter fire season. Predictive Services is forecasting a huge swath of the country encompassing most of Texas, Oklahoma and large parts of Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico to be under elevated fire danger perhaps well into the month of May.
Last year these wind driven fires resulted in deaths of six people and thousands of heads of livestock. As a precaution, the Texas Forest Service has mobilized a large number of firefighting assets, including aircraft. By the first of February, there were eight SEATs, one heavy air tanker and associated aerial supervision platforms.
Once again it appears the Bureau of Land Management has bungled the National Single Engine Air Tanker fire contracts. They issued a bid within a bid seeking cheaper prices which in itself seems shady; seemingly certain contractors had access to other contractors’ prices.
This bears resemblance to what is going in Washington, DC these days where upper level management sets the rules and do what they want, not what is right. There have been at least four protests filed. We should soon see where this will go.
The government’s experiment using Cessna Citation jets for lead planes has failed. It is reported that on a steep pushover the engines on the Citation would hiccup causing the pilot great concern.
The reason for the experiment was the King Airs and turbine Commanders that had been filling this position were simply not fast enough to keep up with today’s jet-powered third generation air tankers. I am sure the experiment will continue, as it is apparent that aerial supervision coordination is lacking on initial attack fires.
The Citation jets were a pleasure to work with and I hate to see them go. The following is just a small example of how politics at the top affects the average little guy or gal. In January I was scheduled to attend the National Aerial Firefighting Academy in Sacramento, California. Hotels were reserved, rental car arranged and airline tickets purchased.
The day before I was to fly out I received an email stating that due to the government shut-down the course had been cancelled. This one event affected hundreds of workers both government and civilian. I can only imagine the amount of waste globally, certainly in the billions of dollars The ABS-D requirement for aircraft position reporting will go into effect on January 01, 2020.
For several years, I have had one in my aircraft. With each season and more widespread use, it has become a valuable tool in aerial firefighting. On a large complex fire, one gets situational data on where you need to be on the fire and the location of other aircraft. With more aircraft complying with the mandate, it will only get better. Hope you all have a safe and prosperous fire season and I hope to see you in the mountains.
