A discussion was started regarding airbase and their capabilities and operational abilities. This thread was created for that discussion.
I wanted to jump in on the convo I was just waiting for it to be moved, I was wondering if Chico just doesn’t have the volume available to support multiple LATs.
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Every situation is fluid. It makes sense to load S-2’s only at Chico and LATs at RDD, RTS, or MCC on a large incident depending on the location of the fire and number of aircraft involved. If it’s just a new start, closest base is CIC and their S-2’s go, then a LAT or two are ordered from a nearby base, no issues running both platforms at the same time. If there are 6 S-2’s and 10 LATs, things change. Same goes if there is a new start near Redding and there are 6 LATs operating, they might end up having a couple load out of Chico, or go there for their fuel cycles if Redding is getting jammed up.
Literally every other calfire tanker base that accepts LATs does simultaneous loading/fueling. LATs are single point fueling. Most of the time the fueling is complete before the retardant is done being loaded. It never slows things down unless a truck breaks or takes a long time to get there. It takes WAY longer to load, fire up, park, shut down, get fuel, fire up again (or get fuel then load) than to do it simultaneously. If the goal is to get max retardant to a fire, it doesn’t make sense, for LATs.
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Was CIC IFR or VFR? MCC, as well as RDD, can handle IFR conditions. Not sure about CIC.
Don’t know Arex. Every Base I was at did it the same way. USFS and CAL Fire. What bases are you referring to, which LATs and when were you there? Sorry to doubt you and not really to argue the point and probably not the forum to discuss this on, but I doubt 2k to 5k L of fuel would be pumped as fast as retardant.
Tanker stops and shuts down. I believe it’s mandatory that all Tanker A/C refuel with dead engines. Fuel Tanker pulls up to the tanker, driver gets out and gets their ladder, places it under the wing, pulls the fuel hose over to the ladder, climbs up on the wing, opens the fuel door, places the nozzle in the fueling opening, starts the fuel flow, tops off the tank, maybe does the whole show at the other wing, puts the hose and the ladder away, notes the quantity for billing, starts the tanker and drives away. What, 15 to 20 minutes? Hot Reloads are in the 3 to 7 minute range with no engine shut down and in and out.
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Can we take the airbase related talk to a new thread?
Please continue it, I find it pretty informative.
Actually, here’s a thread started. I do find it interesting as I was never stationed at an airbase.
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Well, think what you may. I fly a LAT. I’ve been to every calfire base that accepts LATs and probably every other base in the country. 9 times out of 10, with a halfway decent fueler, retardant and fuel get done around the same time, often fuel sooner. Chico is the only one that doesn’t do simultaneous, and we always scratch our heads as to why not.
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The Air Attack base and reloading discussion is very educational and informative. Would it be too much to ask that this be moved to its own topic under the General Discussion section? I don’t want to lose the energy, but it’s hard to follow and keep it separate.
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IMT_Geek your perfectly correct, only I don’t know how to do that.
arex, Thanks for the info. Which LAT? I try to track them all.
Fly safe and be healthy. I think Covid is just as dangerous as management or upper level Agency but you can’t get vaccinated against stupid Agency or management.
Sorry IMT_Geek.
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What does Covid have to do with anything? 
Our Health…
Regarding tanker bases doing simultaneous fueling and loading… that has nothing to do with vaccines and covid…
Point taken arex. When I laid out CIC, Medford was a kickass tanker base and DC-10’s and 747’s only carried bodies, not retardant. I’m not sure CIC can’t handle the fuel issue but remote fueling (ahead a plane length off the loading area) is sort of policy at CAL Fire bases to improve loading frequencies. Don’t want tankers sitting on the taxi way waiting to move onto the pad to reload.
Question? it’s 117.64 miles from the fire (Janesville/Susanville) to RDD (Redding) and only 80 miles to Chico. Why are they reloading at Redding, 37 miles further? Is it the runway rehabilitation at Chico? CIC can handle all the C-130’s, DC- 10’s, BAe-146’s, and RJ 85’s, I know, I designed and set up the ramp. Is it because Chico’s doing a runway improvement?
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CIC can’t handle DC-10’s or any VLAT. There could be many reasons why they aren’t loading there. Fuel status or weather conditions being the main two. Also, for some reason, they don’t do similtaneous fueling/loading there, the only base I know of in the country that won’t. So you have to load retardant, fire up, go park elsewhere, shut down, then get fuel.
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Just as a quick point, Chester also doesn’t do simultaneous fuel/retardant loading.
The retardant is hotloaded, then the tanker either shuts down in place or taxis to a different pit/ramp to shut down, and then load fuel (fuel obviously isn’t hotloaded, for any kind of plane). This was true even when larger tankers like the P-3 were still operated here (and hopefully will be again).
LATs will never load at Chester again. I’m referring to LATs and LATs only. Every single tanker base that services LATs in the United States of America does simultaneous fueling and loading besides Chico.