Night shift anyone?

[mickjoebill]

Could night flying be adopted in Austrlaia?

Forest Service ends ban on night flights to battle fires - latimes.com (http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-station-fire-20120817,0,470220.story?track=lanowpicks)

In a policy shift brought on by scrutiny of the disastrous 2009 Station fire, the U.S. Forest Service will begin nighttime helicopter missions to battle blazes in the Angeles National Forest and other federal lands in Southern California.

The Forest Service said Thursday it has scrapped a ban on night flying to fight wildfires, a prohibition imposed about 30 years ago for safety and cost reasons, and plans to start flights after dark next summer, once crews have been trained and equipped.


mickjoebill

[SASless]

Fires tend to lay down at night....thus firefighting efforts would be more productive than in the day time when the fire is up and running.....or so it would seem. NVG's, FLIR. all would work towards allowing for safe operations if reasonable limits were arrived at before beginning the work.

I am not sure I would want to try Long Line bucket ops using NVG's....as the physical problems of being able to stick your head out the window/door to get you eyes on the bucket would be a trick....not to mention the absence of effective depth perception using the NVG's.

Tanker work would be no problem....doing air drops with a belly tank would be easy enough.

[mickjoebill]

I am not sure I would want to try Long Line bucket ops using NVG's....as the physical problems of being able to stick your head out the window/door to get you eyes on the bucket would be a trick....not to mention the absence of effective depth perception using the NVG's.


Anyone tried low powered flood lights on the bucket to aid depth perception when filling?


Mickjoebill

[ShyTorque]

Good luck to those who have to do this. Wires/power cables would be my biggest concern. You would probably need to drop from higher than optimum to be safely avoiding them, or get a very big bucket.