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The life as a Contract Pilot " Fire Fighting"


Falko

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Hey Everybody,

 

Today is a slow day here at the Helibase in Region 4 and I thought I share some information about my job doing government contracts such as firefighting, prescribe burning and long line operations.

 

First of all I have been doing this for about 3 years now so I am not an expert or very experienced like many many other high-time guys here on VR but I thought I still can help you guys to get a better understanding in terms of what to expect being in this type of helicopter industry.

 

How to get into firefighting ?

 

First of all you need to have a certain amount of flight hours, working for a company that has a 135,133, 137 certificate and a CWN or EU contract.

For the initial carding check ride you are also required to present some paperwork.

 

Here are the minimums:

 

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Pilot Requirements:

Pilots shall have logged minimum-flying time as Pilot-In-Command as follows:

1500 hours total time in helicopters.

100 hours total time in helicopter in last 12 months.

100 hours total time in weight class of helicopter offered. Defined as: Small - Up to an approved gross weight of

6000 pounds, Medium - Between 6001-12500 pounds approved gross weight, Large - Above 12,500 pound

approved gross weight.

100 hours total time in turbine helicopters.

50 hours total time in make and model of helicopter offered. Requirements may be reduced by 50% if the pilot shows evidence of satisfactorily completing the manufactures approved ground school and flight check in make, model and series of helicopter used on this contract.

10 hours total time in make, model and series of helicopter offered, last 60 days.

5 hours total time in make, model, and series of helicopter offered, last 30 days.

10 hours total time in non-radar environments and remote locations in make and model helicopter offered.

Defined as: rural Alaska or similar location.

200 hours total time in mountainous terrain. Defined as pinnacle landings and approaches at various elevations

and density altitudes in areas of rugged peaks, deep canyons, cliffs, rock outcroppings, steep slopes, including

landing on mountain tops and confined areas surrounded by trees, brush, rocks, snow, and ice.

 

In addition to the requirements above you also need:

 

 

1) current 135 "Form 8410-3"

 

2) USFS Form "FS-5700-20A" OR AMD Form "Form 64B"

 

3) Part 133 & Part 137 endorsement

 

3) Completed "Vertical reference Flight Training Endorsement" with 150' long line (10hrs min.)

 

4) "External Load Certificate of Training and Qualification" in form of a laminated card " (size of a drivers license )

 

5) take 4 online classes MH1, MH2, MH3 and Hazmat A-110 on this webpage https://www.iat.gov/Training/pages/online.asp

and print out your certificates.

 

6) Be proficient with your GPS(i.e G430, 530, etc) in your helicopter and with the FM Radio ( i.e. Technisonic TDFM-136 FM Radio. 500. 550. or NPX138D etc)

 

7) and other paper stuff like copies of your medical, certificates..etc

 

8)

a filled and signed INTERAGENCY HELICOPTER LOAD CALCULATION "OAS- 67/FS 5700-17"

 

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What is the initial-carding-check ride like ?

 

First of all, the initial carding check ride will take more time than all the re-currency check rides/ orals / briefing you will have down the road.

You will have to demonstrate your flying skills every 3 years “whatever is signed off on the back of your card will be checked and you need to demonstrate it to a certain standard” and you will have an annual briefing with an inspector pilot who will talk about accidents in the previous years, duty time, regulations and so on. Its like back in school, Some teachers/inspectors will go into all the details and some just scratch the surface.

 

During my initial carding check ride I had an inspector pilot named Gary. B out of Boise. On that day the weather was too bad to do the practical portion of the check ride, so we spent all day doing the oral exam.

First of all he went through me logbook and paperwork to see if I am qualified. Since we couldn’t fly, he spent about 8hrs in quizzing me, giving me scenarios, aircraft performance questions and telling me stories about accidents in the past and things that went wrong when he flew. This oral is not only an exam, its also use to educate and prepare you for what you will encounter on contracts in different regions.….very informative I wish I would have taken some notes.

 

The next day we spent about 4 more hrs in the hangar and he quizzed me on the aircrafts preflight, pointed out components around the engine, gearbox, transmission…ect “ What is this here and what does it do? Lets say this line here comes of during flight, what indications will you get ?

Imagine you do a compressor wash and you forgot to close your bleed air valve, will water get into your governor? If so what happens?.....

There were several questions I couldn’t answer. So Gary went ahead and explained me all about it and had always an accident, incident or story related to the component he quizzed me on.

 

We also took a close look at the bambi bucket, how to trouble shoot problems, we went over the long line and remote hook. Before we went flying, I had to show him how to program the FM radio, how to change the guard frequency, change the TX/RX tone….stuff like that. Then I had to show him how to change the formats of lat and long in my GPS, how to program a new waypoint. Lets say you are at N 91. 44. 24 W 88 44 13 and another helicopter is calling out his position at N 91.01.22 W 88 10.10…. can you tell me where he is according to your location without putting his lat long in your GPS ?

 

Finally the oral was over and we pushed the helicopter out side and started with the flying portion of the check ride. Use the checklist, even thou you know what to do.

 

We took-off and Gary pointed out LZ’s in which he wanted me to land the helicopter in. He asked me to land in LZ's which were, wide open fields, tight LZ’s, too tight LZ’s or had a power lines right over them. The inspector pilot does that to check your ADM( Aeronautical decision making).

 

The reason for that is the helicopter manager (who Gary pretended to be) who will be sitting in the left front seat whenever you fly to and from a fire.

The helicopter manager is not a pilot and may not have enough experience to determine if the helicopter will fit into the LZ which he picket/pointed out. Accidents happened in the past because the pilot did whatever the helicopter manager told him to do. Now imagine you as a pilot picked a spot and you think it’s safe to land and the helicopter manager doesn’t agree with you. Now you have to look for another landing site that works for both of you.

 

If you still decided to land the helicopter even thou the helicopter manager already told you he doesn’t think its safe, he will write you up a SAFECOM, which may result in an investigation and losing your card. Safety is the top priority and you need to be able to work as a team with your helicopter manager as well with everybody else involved on your contract.

 

Anyway, so I did my high and low recon over the Lz and Gary showed me some techniques and ways of reading wind indications in and out side of the helicopter. He also limited my torque (simulating being at max gross weight and high DA) and showed me techniques how to get out of tight the LZ’s.

 

Then we also did some aborted takeoffs in confined lading zones. After that we went back to the airport and attached to bambi bucket and looked for some open water. When you dip your bucket into a lake, make sure you are close to the shore for better reference “ to see if you are moving around” or practice to maintain a steady hover while looking into your external load mirror and focus on the bucket. Or when you dip from a small creek, make sure your tail boom and rotor blades are clear of bushes, trees and stuff…especially in tight spots.

 

Then he picked a tree line and you have to show him that you can empty the bucket on them. Then you will demonstrate a hover drop / precision drop and trail drops. Then back to the airport and demonstrate to land your helicopter with the bucket attached to your belly hook. When the bucket makes contact with the ground you want to start moving the helicopter backwards and also start to decent. Check your external load mirror while backing up and descending. You want to make sure that the bucket control head is pulled forward so the helicopter is not landing on the bucket control head which will cause an ugly dent underneath the helicopter.

Be sure the area behind you is clear. After that we attached the 150’ long line to the helicopter. Once the line came off the ground Gary took over the controls and made my line swing around.

Then he gave the flt controls back to me and my job was to stabilize the long line. Then he picked a taxiway intersection, were I had to bring the remote cargo hook attached to the 150ft long line, at about 10ft AGL to a stop. Now your job is to keep the remote cargo hook at 10ft agl within a box of 10x10ft for 30seconds while maintaining a heading of +- 10 degrees.

On that day it was overcast so no shadow on the ground. That made it even harder for me to judge the height of my cargo hook over the ground.

I am pretty sure I didn’t maintained all theses limitations but Gary is a good guy and he knows that all applicants are nervous on their check ride.

Then he picked an opening in the tree canopy where he wanted me to place the cargo hook inside.

While approaching the LZ I had to look back inside the panel and callout the amount of torque I was pulling. At that time I also had to call out the height of the cargo hook above the ground or about the trees. But what I did before I took-off. I set me altimeter to 850 ft “ minus 150ft “ so when my 150’ line is about to come of the ground my altimeter shows 0ft.So when you know the trees are about 80ft high and your altimeter reads 120ft or so you shouldn’t be make contact with the trees. The more you fly with the line the butter you can judge the heights. Its not the most accurate way but it helps when its overcast and when you operate close to the airport were the terrain is almost like the same as it is at the airport.

 

Once that was done I flew the helicopter back to the ramp and put down the long line in a more or less professional way….I bet my long line was all tangled up and looked like a pile of spaghetti or something like that.

 

Like I said before, the inspector pilots are not expecting seeing an initial carding applicant performing like a pro. There is no time limit so you don’t have to place the load on a certain spot within 1:30 min or something like that during your check ride.

 

It’s all about doing it SAFELY and the “OAS/USFS CARD is another license to LEARN. Whenever there are trees on fire, farmers field in flames, a house surrounded by flames or what ever, keep in mind its not worth flying outside the envelop and killing yourself.

 

Nobody is going to give you a blue ribbon just because you got more buckets on the fire, placed the load into the LZ faster than anybody else. I felt the urgency myself on my first fire I flew on. Rushing and being more aggressive on the controls just to safe a House from flames ???? …the house or trees can be replace down the road… but your life is something nobody can give you back.

 

 

I spent couple weeks to prepare myself for the oral and the flight portion but if your inspector pilot has been in aviation for 30+years, it’s impossible to have all the answers to his questions or impress him with your flying skills. I guess what I am trying to tell you is, don’t expected to know everything. They know you won’t be able to answer all the questions. What they want to see is, if you are a SAFE PILOT with right attitude for the job . He told me stories were he didn’t card applicants because they had the DON’T TELL ME ATTITUDE or demonstrate maneuvers unsafely during the practical check ride, or he felt they just weren’t the right people for this type of job…. But anyway I learned a lot that day and I am still learning and will always learn more and more doing my job.

 

Try to get carded with people like Gary B, Barry L. Walker C….. or stop by at Homestead Helicopters and talked to Tim. P….these people are great people who have tons ov experience.

 

 

What information will be in the card ?

 

Once you obtain your card it holds information such as:

your name, pilot cert. nr. Company name, the type of helicopter you are approved to fly, card expiration date and on the back it shows for what kind of ops you are approved for.

Such as:

Reconnaissance, mountain flying, external load , fire suppression (helitack),retardant / water dropping, aerial ignition (PSD/Torch), long line, animal herding, over water ops, float ops, snow ops,.. etc.

 

 

How long are the contracts ?

 

 

The two most common contracts are CWN (call when needed) and EU (exclusive use)

 

CWN Contracts:

 

CWN contracts are more lucrative for venders/companies because the agency will pay you a certain amount per day for daily availability and lets say 3 hrs of guaranteed flight time per day, whether you fly the hours or not.

 

How much you (company/vender) get paid per flight hour or for your daily availability depends on how much you asking for in the bid you put in with the agency (USFS, DOI, DNR, USFW, BLM...etc).

 

Every region in the US has a list with all the venders where they can see who will be the cheapest and the most expansive ones to call in case there is unexpected work to do.

 

Having a CWN contract allows a vender/company to turn down a request by the region in case the vender is busy with other more lucrative jobs.

 

By having a CWN contract you will be notified mostly a day or two in advance before they put you to work and you might be sent all over the place. It's short notice and therefore you are unprepared the vender will ask for higher daily rates and a higher flight rate. A CWN job will increase the venders expenses hotel, mechanics, MX in the field, increase om fuel prices depending on where you are, gas for the company vehicles, mechanics might be flown to the job sites…etc.

 

Last but not least your company wants to make $$$$$ so you just ask for more money.

 

The Duration of a CWN job could be as short as one day and could be as long as the agency wants or can finance you.

 

 

 

 

EU Contracts:

 

Exclusive USE contracts are contracts where the agency will guarantee to use your helicopter exclusively for so many days a year for the next 3-5yrs or so and with the possibilities to be extended.

 

EU contracts are usually bid for a specific helibase/area but the contract may also include to be used state- or nationwide.

These contracts could be 42+, 90+, 120+, or even 180+ days long. All theses numbers can vary depending on if you get extended or whatever amount of days the contract is asking for.

Let’s say you get a phone call and somebody is asking you if you could do a seismic job for XYZ which will make your company way more money than the EU contract you are currently flying on. Now you can’t back out of the EU contract. But if you were on a CWN contract you could leave and the region/agency would get the next cheapest available CWN vender to base you are about to leave.

 

On an EU contract the vender/company gets paid a daily availability rate (whatever the vender ask for in their bid they put it) but no guaranteed flight time/ day. The flight rate will be whatever you put in your bid.

 

Whenever there is a base open for a bid, many venders put their bid in and the cheapest vender gets it.

 

But that’s the problem, the lower you bid the less profit you make and that’s why you see helicopter companies in the fire business struggling as specially with the bad fire season we had over the last couple years.

 

 

How much money can you earn a day and how about benefit’s?

 

That all depends on your experience and what aircraft you fly and if you have your A&P license, which will increase your income.

There are Type 1( S-61,skycrane, BH214...)

Type 2 ( BH205, 204…) and

Type 3 ( MD 500, jet ranger, long ranger) standard and restricted category helicopters that are used on government contracts.

 

 

Type 3 Pilot 200$-350$/day plus flight rate 25$-50$/hr plus 40-100$ perdiem

Type 2 Pilot 500$-800$/day plus flight rate 50+$/hr plus 150$ perdiem

Type 1 Pilot 1000+$/day plus flight rate 100+$/hr plus 150$ perdiem

 

The vender pays the pilots hotel and travel expenses so your perdiem might be lower than above. Or higher if they dont pay it.... all depends on what deal you worked out.

 

 

The numbers I am giving here may or may not reflect the exact numbers but should be pretty close to what I was told by other Type 1,2,3 pilots

 

A company may also say, ok mister I will give you a bases pay of 50.000$/yr and I will pay you 50$ an hour.. or whatever the agreement might be.

 

Like I said before….it all depends on your qualifications and how much the is company making on their contract.

If they bid low just to get it, your pay MIGHT be decreased as well.

 

 

Benefits ?

 

That amount of money you can make per day doesn’t seem to be that bad . But you WON’T be working all year round. Some guys are done flying after working 7 months, 3 months or less a year. Some guys made enough money, some guys have a job besides flying or some guys fly on other contracts like spraying, prescribe burning..etc.

 

Let’s take a look at benefits such as 401k. As far as I know the amount of utility operators out there which offer benefits is pretty small. If they do, you will have to be a fulltime employee, DO or chief pilot and it won’t be as “good” as the benefits you will find in EMS or in the G.O.M.

Only bigger companies can afford benefits because benefits are big expenses. Especially in Aviation. Buying parts, paying insurance and kepping the fleet airworthy is very expensive for operators already.

 

Flight hours, family, work schedule ?

 

I talked to a skycrane pilot, he flies 100-200hrs a year IF they are busy.

It’s hard to give you an exact number. Since it depends on your company how many contracts they have lined up,how busy the fire season will be and if you get a job with several utility companies though out the year.

 

I fly long and jet rangers “Type 3” and this year I flew about 400hrs on government contracts but only 50hrs or so on fires. Flying on fires only WON’T keep you busy, unless you managed to get on a 180days contract. But there aren’t that many 180days contracts around and as far as I know, they are mostly used for Type 1 helicopters. So I recommend working for a company that has work lined up for you, other than just fighting fires.

 

The agencies run you on a 12 on 2 off schedule or 6 on 1 off schedule.

You can take off more days if you have a relief pilot but you wont see $$$ during your days off.

 

Your contracts are not in driving distance from home so you won’t see your family and friends for a while.

Some pilots say” good bye” to their wives in April and see her again in November.

I see my wife about 5 days a month…not enough if you ask me. I could take off more days but then I make no money. So you sacrifice your relationship for your job.

Some companies hire the pilot’s wife driving the fuel truck so they can be together.

Depending on your contract, there is a good chance you don’t know where you will be and for how long you will be staying at a certain location. Therefore it’s hard to plan family activities in advance especially if you cant find somebody who could relief you during a certain time period.

You will live out of your suite case the whole time. You will be living in a hotel, tent(out west, in AK) or trailer all theses months. Some heli bases have bad or no cell phone coverage, no tv, no internet. But it seems like it got better over the years.

 

 

How is it like fighting fires ?

 

Its lots of fun, challenging and demanding and the best flying I have ever done. Doing utility work such as fire fighting, spraying, long line will enhance your flying skills a lot

 

You will meet a lot of great people and make good friends. There are also periods where you won’t be flying for weeks, so you better find yourself hobby to help killing time at the helibase.

 

As the pilot you talk to the fire fighters on the ground via your FM TAC Channel or AIR to Ground channel, you talk to other aircrafts over the fire on COM1 you talk to Airtack in Com 1 as well and monitoring the Guard frequency. Besides working the radio, flying the aircraft, fighting the fire you might have to look for a LZ for your company fuel truck and guide him there, since you have to get fuel at some point. Unless there is an agency helibase close by where you fuel truck will be waiting for you.

Depending on the fire it can be super busy with 5 aircrafts flying all around you or it can be just you putting out a grass fire on a farmer’s field. Sometimes you use the long line with the bucket attached to it or you attach the bucket straight to the belly hook. It depends on the terrain and how easy you can access water in the vicinity of the fire or what the pilots feels more comfortable with.

 

What’s a normal day at the helibase like ?

 

Before the daily 9am morning briefing I spend about 20 min. to preflight the helicopter. During the briefing the base manager or helicopter manager will tell us about the fire situation in our nation. Like how many new fires were started, how many were contained. What is the weather forecast in our area today….. etc.

 

After that I will fill out our a load calculation “agency form FS 5700/OAS 76” in which I write down numbers like my empty weight, fuel, pilot weight… the max temp. for the day to determine my max payload for the day. Then the helicopter manager will add the weight of the crew, bucket and their equipment they want to carry onboard the helicopter.

The agencies will max you out most of the time since they want you to fly as long as possible and carry as much as possible.

Most likely there is a new HECM “ Helicopter crew member” at the helibase and you as the PIC have to give everybody on board of your helicopter a briefing such as, Here is how you turn off the engine, this is how the intercom works, here is the survival kit, first aid it, this is how you takeoff my door at the LZ , this is how you connect the bucket to the helicopter, we to the 1, 2,3 check using such and such hand signals …. and so on

 

After that everybody is kicking back and waits for the dispatch until they let you go home/ hotel which happens around 5pm-8pm. All that depends on the staffing level/ fire threat level in your area on that day.

 

In case you do get dispatched, your helicopter manager will notify you, you and the helicopter manager will walk to a map and he will show you where the fire is, so you are aware of the hazards in the area like towers, windmills and such which are marked on the map. Besides that they will give you the Lat Long of the fire which you will put in your GPS.

When you get to the fire you and your helicopter manager will look at the fire first “size up” talking to the guys on the ground via the FM radio and give them an update on the fire from above and relay the same information to dispatch.

 

In case the ground crews want us to assist them on this fire, the helicopter manager and the pilot will then look for the closest water source and for a suitable LZ to drop of the crew. Once that LZ is located you do your high and low recon and land. Then the helicopter crew members in the back will hop out on your command and deploy the bambi bucket and in the mean time you establish radio contact with your helicopter manager on your FM radio. When the crew members attached the bucket to the helicopter they also check the water release mechanisms by giving you a hand signal and you push the water release button/switch on your collective. Before you liftoff you as the pilot should make sure that the wires of the bucket are not laying over your skids “ dynamic rollover” and off you go.

Most of the time It will take the helicopter crew a while before they get to the fire but the helicopter manager will tell you where he wants to focus on dropping the water before he will exit the helicopter. Once the fire is out you go back to your LZ, pick up your crew , fly back to your base, do another preflight, fuel it up, debrief and wait again.

 

 

 

I guess that’s all I have as of right now..

 

Fly Safely,

 

Falko

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Falko-

 

NICE WRITEUP! Very informative and an excellent read...thanks. I'm sure there could be a lot more added, but these are your experiences rattled off in a similar format that (on a different subject) I would have done. Add more if/when you get the chance - I'll prolly be looking in this direction at some point and this will be a great reference. Maybe some other fire drivers here can provide other perspectives/experiences operating from differing regions (ie., R5 vs R6 vs R10 vs R8...) either in same season or from different seasons. Loaded question, but who have you felt/know of that were really great operators to works with in terms of support (from the field) as well as backing decisions.

 

-WATCH FOR THE PATTERNS, WATCH FOR THE WIRES-

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Falko- thanks for the write up. With so damn much to learn, how did you get into it? Is there ever any opportunity for a SIC to gain some of this experience first hand without being carded?

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Falko- thanks for the write up. With so damn much to learn, how did you get into it? Is there ever any opportunity for a SIC to gain some of this experience first hand without being carded?

 

I worked for a company that offered flight training and also had an EU contract for their BH206. I started out doing flight instruction and also flew their 206, whenever there was work for it to get my 50hrs in make in model ( to qualify).

 

Companies like columbia helicopters, ericson, evergreen or helicopter transport service inc out of Oregon hire SIC's. I know of guys that had around 200hrs or less who got their first SIC-job in a skycrane. i heard you spend about 3 fire seasons with them before they put you in the left seat. But some companies want you to leave after couple of fire season to gain more experience on your own, gain more hours and then come back to be qualified as a captain.

 

Depending on your captain you are flying with, he may, may not or lets you fly the machine just a little bit. The last couple of years were slow for Type 1 operators and not all of their helicopters were flying. Because of that, they didn’t hire many guys for the right SIC seat. Instead they put two captains in their working helicopters, since you dont want to lose one of your captains…..especially since there aren’t enough / many qualified pilots around for such big helicopters and upgrade training/ type rating isn’t cheap in them.

 

Some operators which are using BH212 (Single pilot), 204, 205 let sometimes people ride along on their fire contracts as along as the contract allows it and the helicopter manager is fine with it.

 

For example:

 

Your company has a bh212 on a fire contract, you get a dispatch, you as new pilot hop in the back of the helicopter together with the firefighters. You get to the fire and the helicopter lands, firefighters and helicopter manager hop out of the aircraft. Now since the helicopter manager hopped out of his front seat, you can sit in the front and log flight time with your high time mentor pilot while doing bucket work. Once the fire is out, you will swap seats again and sit with the firefighters in the back again on your way back to the helibase.

 

OR you try to get into a helicopter company that uses restricted category helicopters like the UH-1 series. Agencies don’t use them to transport ground crews around. Agencies use restricted helicopters as fire support helicopters. Theses helicopters takeoff from helibases with their bambi bucket already attached to the helicopter.

You could fly with in the front as a “Crewmember”

But having another 200lbs guy I the front means less fuel(28gal) or less water(25gal) in the bucket….especially at high DA and more expanses for the operator (your pay)

 

Also keep in mind those agencies like USFS rather use standard category helicopter since they are more versatile than restricted category helicopters.

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Falko,

 

Thanks so much for this write up! This was extremly helpful and gives us low time pilots insights into what's a head of us. I really appreciate your time you spent on writing this! Maybe one day our paths will cross in this very small helicopter world and I will buy you a Coke!

 

Thanks,

Brett Reeder

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  • 6 years later...

Falko,

 

Not sure if you're still hanging around here, but I really liked and appreciated your post even it is a few years old. I'm an Army pilot, I have some ground wild land fire fighting experience and really like to fight fires from the air after I retire. If you are still here, I have a couple questions;

1. (Answered in the reply to Goldy)

2. (Answered in the reply to Goldy)

3. I know the Kiwis come over here and Canada to fly fires, but do you or anyone you know go the other direction during our winters? Or go up to Canada as dual rated pilots?

4. Does anyone travel around in 5th wheels or RVs instead of staying in hotels? Maybe even with a spouse?

 

It's a shot in the dark, but thanks,

 

Wes

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