Well it’s major thread drift, but I goes along with this I suppose.
The short answer is yes, No Forest Service employee who is not a check pilot should be flying in a Blackhawk/Firehawk. (I keep thinking of loopholes, for instance I know that LEO’s have flown in military Blackhawks for LEO operations, but lets exclude LEO’s). It’s a risk issue to them, and I think they don’t want to risk 20 people dying in 1 helicopter. They would rather only 10 people die in a helicopter crash.
The Forest Service use to use type 1 helicopters for troop movements. They had a type 1 helicopter rappel crew even out of the Los Padres. It was not unheard of to fly in the Boeing civilian certified Chinook.
Iron 44 crash happened in 2008 in the Shasta Trinity. The company had falsified records, performance numbers and I think weight and balance sheets. This lead to the crash which killed 9 people and injured 4 others. Basically since that day Fed’s have not been allowed to fly in a type 1 helicopter (except for a say a check pilot).
There is also a rule about restricted category aircraft and public use vs civilian use, which comes into play with all this, and makes things even more convoluted.
BLM changed their mind on some of this 5 or more years ago, and they contracted a type 1 helicopter with crew, and created an MOU with Calfire for their ships.
Basically the Forest Service has created rules that are much more restrictive than the federal regulations, some of this is good, and some of it in my opinion is bad, and they have put themselves into a box, that is not needed.
I’m sure there are some occasions where an IC or Divs jumps in an LA county Firehawk and takes a recon, but technically that is probably against the rules, unless they have an MOU, and I don’t think they do with LA County.
Its been a long time since I’ve worked for the FS and I didn’t work for them in aviation, so I don’t remember the exact policies. I just remember, No you can not get in a type 1 and no you can not get in a Calfire helicopter as a FS employee.
Some of that comes into play because of the restricted category/Public use vs Civilian aircraft use debate as well.
All aircraft are certified by the FAA in different categories. There are hoops and flight tests and structural tests that have to be completed to be allowed to say be a commercial airliner. Most aircraft that come to the market for commercial operations (ie helicopters) are certified in the standard category, where they have no restrictions on them. The Blackhawk, being a military aircraft was never sent through all the hoops with the FAA to be certified this way(although the military’s hoops were probably just a tough, but this is the government here, if it made sense, it wouldn’t be that way.) The large majority of the aircraft that come surplus from the military end up in the restricted category because of this. You aren’t going to be seeing anyone offering to fly you and your friends to Catalina on a Blackhawk, because the FAA says that’s not safe, because they don’t have the paperwork to prove its safe. These aircraft end up with type certificates that say they can be used for things like Long line/agriculture/firefighting etc. Not carrying passengers.
So how does LA County fly their crews in their Firehawks… Well they are not civilian aircraft technically, they are certified under “public use” aircraft, as are CalFires.
Public Use is a unique classification, because “technically” you don’t even have to have a pilots license to fly one. It’s basically a whole separate set of rules for government agencies. There pilots still have licenses and they still do maintenance the same as they would otherwise, but its a gray area and the Forest Service doesn’t like the risk assessment in the gray area. They actually threw a hissy fit when BLM went to a type 1 restricted category ship with crew.
I know in the past the FS was ok with declaring aircraft public use that were in the restricted category so they could carry crewmembers, but I don’t know when that changed, or if that was because of Iron 44.
So as if this isn’t a long enough answer. LA City runs AW139’s, that are a civilian certified aircraft. If I had a few million dollars I could go out and buy one and hire a pilot to fly me and all my friends wherever I wanted. Though I could probably technically go buy a new S-70 from Sikorsky, I would not be allowed to ride in it, unless I was a crucial crew member (aka no friends). So LA City’s ships are probably fine for the FS to fly in…except they are in the type 1 realm technically so once again excluded by the FS’s policy box.
Longs enough answer?? haha
