Fire Ops

[sierrasplitter]

My home airport is about 15 miles from the Valley Fire down here in San Diego County . I went out of town for the weekend and all hell broke loose .
Federal Fire Choppers ( Blackhawks ), National Guard (Blackhawks/CH46 ), Cal Fire ( Bell 212/414) , San Diego fire choppers ( Bell 4-4) San Diego Gas and Electric ( Erickson Air Crane / Blackhawk / Bell 212 ) San Diego County Sheriff ( Bell 414 )
Amazing show of air power .
One of the parallel runways is closed and is being used as a staging area for refueling .
It may be that way for a few days to a few weeks depending on how long it takes to get control
I went down today and did a few T and G’s to keep sharp in the Pacer . Due to smoke their wasnt a lot of good options for anything else . Marine layer had the Coast out of bounds too
Anybody else being affected at your airport ?

[FFSchooley]

Yes sir. It’s been going between IFR and MVFR here in concord (Bay Area.) I have a lesson tomorrow morning to prep for my first solo, so I am hoping the wind shifts tonight enough to at least do some pattern work. Such a bummer. Between repairs, Covid, kids at home for school, and now smoke, it’s been quite a challenge to get my lessons in!

when I first started with the fire department we would sometimes get to go the the local airbase and fill CDFs S2 tankers. It was really fun. They would pull up to the pad, we would go out and hook up a hose to their real fill port, plug the headset in to a jack and chat with the pilot as we filled. There were lights by the fill port to show you when to throttle down. Once full, disconnect and off they go!

[Tailwind_Fan]

A few weeks back during the Stagecoach fire, we had air ops at Tehachipi, and Lake Isabella. My first flight into Lake Isabella and I’m avoiding UH-1 Huey’s with a bucket underneath... waiting on brunch and watched one land.... it was surreal in a sense.

-Alana