Firehawk Starts but if I Shut It Off It Wont Start Again for Awhile
Estimated reading time 16 minutes, 42 seconds.
Information technology has proven to be another busy yr for Los Angeles County Burn Department'south (LACoFD's) aviation unit. But equally the frequency of enormous wildfires in the region has increased, so has the unit'southward capability to attack them. Today, when a wildfire is reported anywhere in the county, the unit tin can launch four helicopters to attack information technology at a moment's notice. Only the unit's responsibility isn't express to fighting the county'southward record-breaking blazes; on any given shift, information technology could be called to a medical emergency miles off the California coast on Catalina Island, or be asked to find and hoist aboard a lost or injured hiker in high mountains.
Equally they say, information technology'southward all in a 24-hour interval'south work.
The LACoFD Air Operations Section (AOS) has long enjoyed a reputation as a premier firefighting and public safety operator. The unit of measurement provides circular-the-clock emergency coverage to over 10 million residents across four,100 square miles (ten,600 square kilometers), including 70 miles (112 kilometers) of Pacific shoreline, 2 offshore islands, vast inland deserts and rugged coastal mountains that rise to more than x,000 anxiety (3,050 meters).
Based at Barton Heliport at Whiteman Aerodrome, 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of downtown Los Angeles, LACoFD AOS is staffed by 12 helicopter pilots flying mean solar day and night nether visual flight rules and with dark vision goggles (NVGs). Eighteen firefighter/paramedics teamed in 2-person squads serve as crew primary and rescue specialists. These three-person crews brand up AOS'due south "regional air squads."
Each morning time, a minimum of three regional air squads launch from the Barton Heliport, typically before 10 a.m., repositioning to remote operations bases throughout the county.
Crews piece of work 24-hour shifts, performing missions that range from hoist rescue and blue-water response to search-and-rescue (SAR) and firefighting. They return to Barton the following morning for crew alter and daily shipping maintenance.
During periods of high fire danger, staffing may exist increased to field five aircraft. These may include shipping dedicated strictly to firefighting, and a helicopter coordinator (HLCO) to manage air traffic over congested scenes. During periods where LACoFD shipping are committed to firefighting, a sixth shipping may exist brought online to ensure acceptable air medical coverage.
"We're primarily what we telephone call a QRF, or a quick reaction force, which is designed for a quick response to get at that place and go into the fight," said Eric Pacheco, a senior pilot. "Nosotros merely tin can't sustain that for long periods of time. We can get in in that location and sustain a high-level fight for a brusque catamenia of fourth dimension. Simply if it goes to a longer or a campaign burn, we start to dwindle our resource pretty quick. So we're looking for the cavalry to come in and take over so nosotros tin regroup for any other starts that may occur."
"Those aircraft are there to support the basis unit," said senior pilot Mike Sagely. "Our goal is to provide the best fire suppression support to the guys on the ground and the leadership that's making the decisions on any the strategies are on the performance. And we do that by being very aggressive, getting to the fire very quickly. I call up we pride ourselves on being tactically sound with those first 10 or fifteen minutes, pregnant you drop water where it makes sense to ballast the fire and buy some time and exist equally productive equally possible."
The fleet
In 2019, the LACoFD armada of five Bell 412s (iii 412EPs and 2 412HPs) and three Sikorsky Southward-70A Firehawk helicopters turned roughly two,900 hours, conducting 1,174 full public condom missions, 647 Ems responses, 466 medical transports, 134 hoist rescues, and 369 fire responses that delivered over 1.5 1000000 gallons (5.7 million liters) of water and burn suppression cream.
L.A. County was the beginning public safety operator of the Firehawk, initially acquiring two in 2001 and a third in 2005.
"We take had the Firehawk in service for the County of Los Angeles Fire Department for twenty-plus years. [The Firehawk] has performed flawlessly," said Pacheco. "This has been proven with performance, dependability, condom and reliability. Sikorsky/Lockheed has taken an already capable product line and stepped up the game on improvements with blending technology to raise an already proven product line."
In August 2020, two additional S-70i Firehawks entered service, greatly enhancing capabilities and overall mission readiness.
"The proven effectiveness of the S-lxx Firehawk as the perfect platform to perform our multi-mission responsibilities has been [shown] over the by 20 years, there's no doubt about that," said Air Operations Battalion Main Pat Sprengel. "The new shipping volition allow Fifty.A. County to operate at a high level of effectiveness during the fire season with at least iii Firehawks bachelor daily. This ensures the shipping volition be more efficiently staffed and available during critical times."
The 412s are still used as multi-mission aircraft, Sprengel said. They perform h2o drops admirably, simply cannot comport equally much h2o as the Firehawks.
"They're even so the backbone of our Ems mission," Sprengel said. "They're excellent for transports to the hospitals and specialty centers. And they're also very capable aircraft for SAR and hoist rescue."
For the fire mission, the 412s have 360-United states gallon (1,360-liter) belly tanks and a standard external snorkel. Firehawks are equipped with a 1,000-Us gallon (three,785-liter) belly tank/thirty-US gallon (113-liter) foam-injection tank, a retractable snorkel and high-efficiency h2o pump providing a fill time of 45 seconds. They tin can also have a rear cabin seating configuration for transporting up to eleven firefighters. All Firehawks take a nighttime vision-compatible cockpit and rear cabin lighting and Spectrolab SX16 Nightsun searchlights.
Both airframes are configured similarly for the air medical and SAR mission and can be quickly reconfigured.
"We try to be airborne within five minutes of the time of the call," said firefighter/paramedic Michael Nelson. "And we've learned over the years that it's best to keep our equipment with usa. So, all of our aircraft have the full ALS [advanced life support] complement of equipment and we volition take it with the states to a fire. Then, if demand be, we will off-load equipment at i of our heli-spots. So we tin switch between mission configurations in less than five minutes to respond to any we need to do."
Maintaining readiness
LACoFD maintenance technicians are responsible for maintaining the fleet and ensuring the necessary level of readiness.
"What's actually unique about this identify is everything from 24-hour interval-to-day maintenance to some depot-level stuff is done hither," said LACoFD chief of helicopter maintenance Dennis Blumenthal. "We do all of the installs, nosotros do all the composites and canvass metal and modifications. . . . Annihilation that gets done to these helicopters that tin exist done here, including overhauls and heavy maintenance, we'll do right hither."
The county mandates LACoFD to have a minimum of three helicopters available every solar day, around the clock. With a fleet of ten shipping, that could seem like a pretty low bar. Simply that isn't the case. In recent years, Blumenthal has had to juggle his scheduled maintenance due to the twelvemonth-circular fire season.
"I [used to] schedule maintenance so that almost of the heavy stuff was washed Jan through May," Blumenthal said. "In the past five or eight years, nosotros've had all these huge fires in Jan through May as well. So now, with 10 shipping, I tin no longer even program on January through May. Major scheduled maintenance on both airframes has become much more than intense. The PMIs [phase maintenance inspections], the 360s [flight hour inspections] and the 720s, on [Firehawk] legacy ships, it could exist anywhere from six to 12 weeks."
He added that the newer ships have less problems and parts are more readily available, and so they're more often than not quicker through their service. "Bell has implemented a 600-hour airframe inspection every yr," he said. "And so at present, instead of having an annual that took a week or a week-and-a-one-half, we're now looking at sometimes four weeks to become these things completed."
Blumenthal has been somewhat frustrated past the difficulty of finding qualified maintenance technicians who possess a 18-carat passion for doing the work. Presently, they are operating with only nine of the allotted 14 technicians. As a result, overtime is required to meet his maintenance needs. In August, his crew — including ii inspectors and 3 senior mechanics — worked 995 hours of overtime, he said.
To broaden staffing, Blumenthal has contracts with two outside providers. Rotorcraft Support Inc. and Helicopter Support Inc. provide additional component piece of work and manpower during the busy periods, such as fire season.
While the workload may often be hefty, Blumenthal believes his technicians possess a sense of genuine pride in how their piece of work improves public safe.
"They know every one of these helicopters takes off for 1 reason and only one reason: to save lives or property," Blumenthal said. "In that location are no 'not-essential' flights. It's astonishing, when we turn on CNN or local news and y'all see your helicopters, there'south just a complete sense of pride that the individuals here get, because they know those crews are doing their jobs because of the jobs that we're doing. None of u.s.a. always got that feeling working anywhere else."
All mean solar day, every day
In L.A. County, the two new Due south-70i Firehawks are primal elements in the fire section's aggressive initial assail strategy.
"Because of the urban interface with building up to the edge of the wildland, our push in 50.A. County is to send an extremely robust response of aircraft to proceed the fire small," Sprengel said. "So, if we had a first alarm correct at present we would typically send four helicopters and two [contract] CL-415" Super Scoopers.
In addition to providing service throughout Los Angeles County, the section too maintains stiff relationships with neighboring agencies, promoting cooperative mutual aid. Information technology'south non uncommon to see LACoFD aircraft supporting initial assault efforts in nearby Ventura or Orange counties, or working overnight on NVGs on a sustained attack for construction protection 100 miles (160 kilometers) away in Santa Barbara Canton. Of course, when the demand arises, these centrolineal agencies will transport their assets to support urgent missions in 50.A. County, too.
With iii LACoFD Firehawks in service with the agency for 20 years and the 412 fleet also crumbling, there is an effort underway to modernize the fleet, Sprengel said.
"Our mission moving forwards is replacement of both the three older Firehawks besides as the 412 fleet, which is besides getting older," Sprengel said. "It'southward nice having a multi-aircraft armada because of the variety it gives us and the 412 is a very capable aircraft. It merely doesn't give us the i,000-gallon load that the Firehawk spoils us with."
LACoFD'southward reputation as a premier firefighting and public safety operator/bureau is due in part to the highly dynamic environment in which its crews work. While the multifariousness of the mission and high phone call volume is indeed unique, some in the organisation indicate to the character of the individuals that brand up the AOS equally the primal to overall success. "It's that esprit de corps, that warrior ethos, the mentality, the equipment," said Sagely, ruminating on lessons learned from 17 years as an Army special operations pilot.
"You go and throw it all into an egg beater and yous cease up with this really unique model of people. They're like-minded in their mentality, their work ethic, their approach towards their responsibilities to their mission, their responsibility to the taxpayers, and that's not just the pilots — that'due south the crew chiefs, crewmembers and maintenance crew as well. But collectively, as a department, nosotros get on it. And we do it every day and we practise information technology every time we go out."
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Source: https://verticalmag.com/features/l-a-county-fire-air-ops-all-in-a-days-work/
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