Winnipeg to Santiago Chile!

[vagabond]

Love the 'gym'!

How do you aim and release the water over the right spot? Do you have someone in the back in charge of that?

[Darcy]

A birddog, generally in a fixed wing high above, coordinates the drops, like left flank or cut the head, your number 3, etc, then you line up to your drop zone. If you’re lined up and over it, it’ll drop below where you want it, directly below. For the release, You get a feel when to punch it depending on your speed, or find a visual marker abeam to release. We miss the mark sometimes but if it’s too often you’ll be off the fire. They watch the heavy helicopter drops closely as we are pretty expensive. With the longline you can swing the bucket into it more with a turning release too, avoiding the smoke or flames.

[vagabond]

A birddog, generally in a fixed wing high above, coordinates the drops, like left flank or cut the head, your number 3, etc, then you line up to your drop zone. If you’re lined up and over it, it’ll drop below where you want it, directly below. For the release, You get a feel when to punch it depending on your speed, or find a visual marker abeam to release. We miss the mark sometimes but if it’s too often you’ll be off the fire. They watch the heavy helicopter drops closely as we are pretty expensive. With the longline you can swing the bucket into it more with a turning release too, avoiding the smoke or flames.

Very cool.

[Darcy]

Some shots from yesterday afternoon:

[Ozymandias]

Flew back to civilization yesterday, in Winnipeg now. Will be flying to Western Canada Thursday to pick up the other Super Puma to fly back here, then home for the holidays. Supposed to depart Jan 2nd. Route is being finalized and all the necessary overfly and cross border permits getting sorted. I've heard of guys being posted in barbed wire compounds in the mountain to stage for fire fighting but my boss seems to think we'll be in a nice beach house with a hot tub. I guess I'll see. Fly rod will be going along...



Also, here's a video (I didn't shoot it) of my buddy pulling wire earlier in the season. I can't seem to embed it.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Custom-Helicopters/i-LSsq6cS/0/11be91db/1280/IMG_2454-1280.mp4

Thanks for sharing, this is fascinating. Good to hear about BFC people doing BFC stuff!

[Darcy]

I'm having an absolute blast. Flew lots of fires in my 20s, I forgot how much fun they are.

[Darcy]

A few more to share.

Haven't seen a cloud since we've been here. Extremely dry. Quite busy, but they have this neat rule that when we return to base for fuel, we have to shut down and chill for 40 minutes. None of the start-in-the- morning, hot-refuel and go-all-day, 10 hours straight in the cockpit days I was doing last summer in Canada. The Spanish do have this penchant for dropping water up hill and downwind, contrary to anything I've ever been taught as a pilot, but its fun nevertheless. Got one week left before I head home for a 2 week break.

We are on shift from 9 am until 9 pm (and have to be "available" anytime after 7 am), so I haven't been able to explore the area much nor break out my fly rod....

[Darcy]

Last few, I head home tomorrow.

[mb]

A successful sortie?

How's your copilot done on his big adventure?

[Darcy]

Been with two this hitch. They are very experienced longline/forest fire guys who love this shit as much as I do. Been really good. First guy was his first time flying out of Canada so definitely an eye opener, but he's incredible on the longline. Second guy is a Kiwi who has been around. The biggest thing here is you have to follow whatever they are doing, and the Spanish pilots standard ops is to drop downwind and uphill, something we'd NEVER do. The odd pilot from away tries to buck the system and drop into wind but gets barked at pretty quickly. Yesterday in a massive shitshow we were following suit and dropping downwind and our bucket failed to drop. It was a hairy assed recovery trying to get airspeed, get out there and not over torque the aircraft. Not ideal. Lots of evacuations all around us now, even the fire camps. Place is blowing up. I have to cover todays shift then fly out tonight.

[Darcy]

We are more or less steering them as opposed to putting them out. Its so dry and volatile they just explode after they light. Pretty crazy here right now.

[Darcy]

So many fires, so damn hot. They were flaring up everywhere and our camp got overrun, big immediate evacuation call, we launched in some very low visibility and finally broke out, but new camp to the south got smoked out too. Back in the city now in a hotel, after rerouting three times for fire closed roads. Another crew crashed and died today.





Rest in peace fellas
https://thehotshotwakeup.substack.com/p/helicopter-crash-reported-in-chile

[dogtanian]

Did you get out before the insane weather / cold?

No, I was in a Northern bush camp just below Churchill for almost a month of -40. I didn't have my extreme cold Arctic gear as it was only December. Froze my ass off. We leave for Chile January 3rd.

Good news though; the Spanish company we are contracting to might give me an "in" back into the military contracting world.... fingers crossed. Not being "American" closed a few doors when that market dried up. Bucketing water onto fires is damn fun flying though...

Plan is to overnight in Panama then again in Ecuador, with just a fuel stop in Cali, Colombia. I've got some friends I want to visit in Colombia so I'll probably push for a layover.

Give me a shout if you're stopping by Cartagena.

[ReptilianKittenEater]

The campfires down there have been making the news up here. I am guessing you are south of Santiago - north of Santiago there was nothing to catch fine.

[Darcy]

Did you get out before the insane weather / cold?

No, I was in a Northern bush camp just below Churchill for almost a month of -40. I didn't have my extreme cold Arctic gear as it was only December. Froze my ass off. We leave for Chile January 3rd.

Good news though; the Spanish company we are contracting to might give me an "in" back into the military contracting world.... fingers crossed. Not being "American" closed a few doors when that market dried up. Bucketing water onto fires is damn fun flying though...

Plan is to overnight in Panama then again in Ecuador, with just a fuel stop in Cali, Colombia. I've got some friends I want to visit in Colombia so I'll probably push for a layover.

Give me a shout if you're stopping by Cartagena.

Last I heard they are shipping the helo back via ship, so I probably won't get a chance, but fingers crossed.