The FAA has many hands and policies as a tight control over all civilian aircraft. They don’t have much to control or say when it comes military aircraft.
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Correct sir. The aircraft used for the creek fire rescues were active frontline equipment, on mission at the request of OES. The pilots in command were senior officers (the Army guys were both CW5’s) with thousands and thousands of hours both in combat missions as well as training and other rescues as requested by OES. If I recall correctly there was an Air Force Blackhawk as well, fulfilling OES mission.
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Corrected. Air National Guard ALS PaveHawks as well.
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It appears tankers 76 and 78 are launching out of Bishop? Are they based there now? And how long has Bishop been an air tanker base? I haven’t noticed on previous fires Cal Fire s2’s flying out of there.
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76 and 78 are based at porterville, bishop is an as needed federal base that has used as Single engine air tanker base. They finally took down the tree next to the fed facility…and piled the tree nearby. If a fire got started there it would probably burn down, weedeating doesn’t look like a big priority.
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Bishop to my knowledge has always been a reload base. There were many years it sat idol with no reload base. Any one know if fixed wing AT flew out of here? There was always a Fed Helitack crew that flew at of Independence about 40 miles south of Bishop.
Slasher when I ran crew out of OVY Camp we would do brush release on the runways and around the airport. That’s when we were running five crews out of camp.
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There were a couple s2 s landing there yesterday on flightaware , i would assume they were loading
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As Slasher stated both tankers out of Porterville were reloading there. Along with both tankers out of Columbia.
Anyone know if Bishop set up to reload the Lats?
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According to the INF page , it is capable of seat to LAT
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How do they staff up Bishop when needed?
Where does the staff come from for topping off the tankers?
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The LATS were going to Fresno and Porterville.
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The Bishop Air Tanker Reload Base is located at the Eastern Sierra Regional Airport (KBIH) at 703 Airport Road, Bishop, CA. The base, operated by the US Forest Service, is utilized during fire operations to reload air tankers dropping fire retardant on blazes in the Inyo National Forest. [1, 2, 3]
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I spent probably 10-15 days @ the reload base over multiple years with the Bishop Fire Department.
Staffing for the reload base would come from USFS and BLM locally/on forest (mix master, base manager, and loaders). Bishop Fire would provide the crash rescue engine, and a water tender to refill the water cistern for the mix. I’ve heard rumors that it’s getting back to being used again after not being used for several seasons. Talks of CALFIRE wiling to take it over abound in the local rumor mill. This was also before Bishop started commercial aviation, so the days of leaving the gate open for access to the reload base have gone away with TSA.
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Thank you, appreciate the specific info
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Does anyone know where, if at all, FW 51 post their perimeters?
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EGP which has to be accessed from FAMAuth.
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