PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - How not to fly when aerial firefighting
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Old 16th Aug 2019, 00:42
  #27 (permalink)  
Big Pistons Forever
 
Join Date: Jan 2004
Location: Canada
Age: 63
Posts: 5,203
Received 133 Likes on 60 Posts
I spent 17 years in fix wing fire suppression and have got to say that video was hard to watch and the crew was very lucky they did not hit the hill. I never thought this job was especially dangerous as we had good SOP's and excellent equipment. One thing I never like about the US program was, unlike Canada, lead planes were not mandatory. I firmly believe that this near miss would not have happened if they were operating with a lead airplane as the lead airplane would have determined the safe ridge crossing height and min drop altitude before the tanker got low and would have explicitly warned about the ridge on the exit or more likely would have found a better line for the drop.
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