Chasing air tankers is a whole different game than chasing military jets or airliners - aircraft move constantly during the fire season. You can have two Neptunes, a DC-7, a BAe-146 and a DC-10 sitting on your local air attack base one day, with all of them having moved elsewhere the following morning! So armed with some proper instructions from Iwan, the Air Tanker Master himself, I went on my way.
CALFIRE Aircraft Maintenance Unit (AMU) - McClellan Airfield
UH-1H 902 is one of two spare helicopters based at the AMU and is seen here returning from a training sortie.
Unless 901 or 902 are replacing one of the deployed Hueys, it is usually not used for fire fighting.
CALFIRE has been going through a replacement selection process for over 4 years now and these magnificent Hueys are expected to be retired in the next couple of years.
A replacement type has not been announced yet but I was told that CALFIRE has been taking a long hard look at the AW139, which is also used by the Los Angeles Fire Department.
The 500-coded OV-10s are also AMU spares. Here the Grass Valley Air Attack crew comes in to swap the replacement Bronco for their own Bronco.
Most of these are OV-10A models but CALFIRE also acquired 3 former USMC OV-10Ds through the US Department of State, which used them for spraying poppy fields in South America.
One of these was put into CALFIRE service, fitted with the short OV-10A nose. The second aircraft is in storage in a warehouse, waiting for additional funding to allow it to be put into service and the third is stored at McClellan.
S-2T 100 is AMU's spare Tracker. While I was at Grass Valley, Tanker 100 deployed to Columbia Air Attack base to fly the exact route of Tanker 81, as part of the accident investigation.
Once it was determined that the crash had not been caused by structural failure of the S-2T, the Trackers were cleared to fly again.
Grass Valley Air Attack base
Grass Valley is a tiny airfield up in the mountains, an hour's drive North East of McClellan. It's a gorgeous airfield for photography - especially so when they are flying, you are right on top of the taxiway and runway. Of course, the flying all depends on the call outs - which did happen, but the aircraft were unfortunately cancelled before they could start up!
Although the Grass Valley Trackers and Bronco remained idle, the USFS FireWatch AH-1 Cobra did not. It flew multiple sorties from Grass Valley and I was treated to a private little airshow!
Just before sunset, this S-61V landed at Grass Valley from Blue Canyon (see also below).
Nicknamed "The Pres", this Sea King started its career in the Indonesian Air Force as VIP transport for Indonesian President Sukarno.
Blue Canyon Helitack
As Grass Valley does not come online until 10:30 AM, the CALFIRE crew offered to drive me to the Blue Canyon Helitack base - a good half an hour east of Grass Valley.
Although most helicopters had returned home from Blue Canyon, with the large fire they were fighting largely contained, there were still a few helos around.
The lift in the CALFIRE verhicle was most appreciated - not only because I would have never found the place myself, it also made access to the restricted base a lot easier.
McClellan Air Refuelling Base
The "MRB" is located on the platform next to the AMU. Although operated and managed by CALFIRE, it is used to reload and refuel "contractor" tankers.
While I was at Grass Valley, I had planned to head south to Columbia Air Attack base the following day. That was until I received a text message from the pilot of Tanker 7 - one of Neptune Aviation's P-2 Neptune air tankers. They were going to get to the base at 09:00 AM - if I wanted to come on base and see the Neptune. So I immediately changed plans to head back to McClellan.
So as agreed I arrived at the gate very shortly after 9 ... only to see Tanker 7 taxiing out and departing hastily to combat a fire north of Sacramento!
This must have been the first time I had ever seen an actual Neptune taxi and take-off - an amazing sight and sound! Although I was still stuck behind a closed gate, seeing my contact person depart with a plane full of retardant! Luckily the ground crew let me in on time for me to capture Tanker 7 taxiing back to the platform.
There were only two other tankers present - the huge DC-10 VLAT (Very Large Air Tanker) and the new kid on the block, one of the MD-87s of Erickson Aero Tanker.
This is the MD-87's first season as an air tanker but the design of the aircraft has been the cause of some problems. Because the engines are located aft of the drop vents in the fuselage, retardant has entered the engines on a few occasions - once causing a flame-out in the left engine. Not something you want to happen at less than 500 feet off the deck, especially when having to climb out of a steep canyon! At the moment they are limiting the MD-87 to only drop from one of the two vents - to prevent a double flame-out from occurring. However, the engineers at Erickson are back at the drawing table to come up with alternative solutions, so we may see some fins or other airflow disturbing features appear underneath the fuselage of these MD-87s.
A few other interesting aircraft share the ramp the air tanker at MRB:
I suspect that this is a recently retired USCG aircraft? Has anyone any more info on this HU-25? I saw at least one, possibly two, more of these HU-25s at McClellan.
All still carrying their USCG serials but without USCG markings.
On the left hand side of the MRB is the CALFIRE MRU - and on the right hand side is the USCG Air Station, equipped with a number of HC-130Hs.
While departing from McClellan, I made a quick stop at the platform where the ex-Aero Union P-3 air tankers are kept in open storage.
Although Tanker 22 has been sold, it is doubtful if we will ever see the rest of the fleet in the air again.
Most of these shots were taken from publicly inaccessible areas and were made possibly by the tremendous hospitality from all CALFIRE employees and contractors such as Neptune Aviation.
I had contacted most of these people at forehand, as I do not prefer to just barge in somewhere unannounced. The most remarkable thing was that literally a day before I arrived in California, Tanker #81 (a CALFIRE S-2T) sadly crashed while fighting a fire in Yosemite park and the pilot did not survive. The air tanker community is incredibly close knit, everybody knows everybody else, and I was fully expecting my visits to be cancelled in the light of this tragic accident. But no, the people I had been in contact with insisted that I would still visit them. They are truly remarkable folks. Even though I did not get to take shots of any air drops - I considered myself very fortunate to just get to spend time with the crews, hear their stories, being shown around all the aircraft, etc. The S-2Ts had been largely grounded during my visit and only were cleared to fly at a later stage but the CALFIRE people went out their way to enable me to get shots of flying aircraft and helicopters.
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