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Low, Heavy & Slow is No Way to Go Through Life Episode 143 · So There I Was

• 0:00
  Quiet, numbskulls. I'm broadcasting. Hello, you're listening to the podcast.
• 0:04
  So there I was. This is episode number 143.
• 0:08
  Low, heavy, and slow is no way to go through life, son.
• 0:13
  Indeed, it is not. In fact, it's a good way to end going through life.
• 0:19
  Holy smokes. The stuff they covered here.
• 0:24
  Oh, man. No new Patreons or anything this week, But thank you to all of you
• 0:28
  who otherwise have lost control of your mental faculties and thrown money at us.
• 0:34
  Right. We're deeply grateful and humbled.
• 0:38
  Always, always humbled and grateful. Yeah. We're questioning your judgment at
• 0:42
  every turn. But we're glad you have poor judgment and do help us because this isn't free to produce.
• 0:50
  No, but it is a labor of love. Hey, so if this opening preamble sounds a little
• 0:56
  different or funny, it's because Fig and I are doing this one over the phone.
• 1:00
  Because Fig absconded from the country. I don't know.
• 1:03
  What are you, running from the feds or what, Fig? What's going on?
• 1:05
  Listen, I can't talk about it, but I can tell you I'm well south of the border.
• 1:10
  I'm in a Central American country.
• 1:12
  I'm a little R&R with my bride. And it is fantastic.
• 1:15
  And at home, it's like minus three where I'm from right now.
• 1:20
  And I got a sunburn. So just leave it at that. Ooh.
• 1:24
  Well, they aren't getting a sunburn in Pensacola today. It's in the 20s and snowing.
• 1:28
  Oh. Yeah, we topped out at 18 here in New England. So enjoy the warm weather.
• 1:35
  Speaking of burn. Yeah, speaking of burn, this is a timely one,
• 1:40
  but a dreadfully sad one that we have this week.
• 1:44
  We had our previous guest, Double L, back on. Double L had a very unique mission
• 1:50
  set in the unit he was in, and they were aerial firefighters.
• 1:54
  So he gave us a Ph.D. level overview of what a MAPS unit is and what it's like
• 2:02
  to fight a fire from the air in a tanker aircraft.
• 2:05
  Aside from slightly terrifying on every flight, it looks like fun.
• 2:10
  Totally terrifying. Yeah. It's a very easy way to get yourself killed.
• 2:15
  And unfortunately, it's happened on more than one occasion. Indeed.
• 2:19
  But I just found it fascinating finding out more detail about how they do it
• 2:23
  and the things that they do.
• 2:25
  Because one of the comments I said to them, and I don't remember if I said it
• 2:28
  pre-show or in the show, was it sure seems to me like you're spitting on a fire.
• 2:34
  Right. You know, even with thousands and thousands of pounds of retardant,
• 2:38
  you're spitting on the fire. He's like, yeah, you kind of are.
• 2:40
  But then he explained most of the time they're trying to build a fire break around the fire.
• 2:45
  They're not trying to put the
• 2:45
  fire out. They're trying to prevent it from spreading. I didn't get that.
• 2:48
  Yeah. I didn't understand that before, but that makes total sense. Right?
• 2:51
  Yeah. Well, you're going to love this because there's so much insight.
• 2:55
  And we had questions from some listeners at the time.
• 2:58
  Really, really very informative. It really paints a really big picture.
• 3:02
  Absolutely. On what actually happens. How it works. Yeah, and then the other
• 3:05
  thing is he sent us some video over his left shoulder from the cockpit from
• 3:09
  when he was actually fighting fires back in the day.
• 3:12
  So we'll put that up on the website. It's sotherawas.us slash episode slash 143.
• 3:19
  And it'll be worth going there to take a look-see at that. So I think in the
• 3:24
  meantime, we should probably get out of the way.
• 3:27
  Let's do it. All right. Don't sit on the fire release. This here's a true story.
• 3:33
  I don't know, man. Talk about crossing the pond. I don't know.
• 3:35
  Whatever it is, just don't stay on it.
• 3:38
  In the world's smallest cockpit.
• 3:42
  On the tanker. Through the weather.
• 3:45
  Oh, and to the tanker crew who did that. Thanks a lot. We really appreciated that.
• 3:47
  Music.
• 3:53
  I'm just kidding. No, I'm not.
• 4:04
  There I was, crossing the pond, and you could see that I wasn't,
• 4:09
  So there I was, going down the side of a hill, and there was nothing but fire
• 4:14
  on both sides of the valley.
• 4:15
  And the first thing I thought was, what the hell am I doing here?
• 4:19
  And how did I get here? Why am I here?
• 4:23
  And that's how all terrifying aviation tales begin.
• 4:28
  Welcome, everybody. Repeat here, coming to you from New Hampshire, cohorts to your home.
• 4:33
  I am, as of last night. I'm back in, you know, God's country,
• 4:37
  Kearney, Missouri. And it is our pleasure to welcome back Double L.
• 4:44
  Nowhere to go but down. Welcome back, Double L.
• 4:48
  Going down a side of a mountain with fire on both sides. All right. So obviously.
• 4:54
  Just real quick. We had Double L on episode 23. So that was a couple weeks ago.
• 5:00
  Wow. Because we're up to one. This is 143. So you're 120 episodes later and
• 5:05
  nowhere to go but down since you came back with us.
• 5:11
  What'd you say the original episode was for him 23 nowhere to go but up no way yeah way,
• 5:19
  well we we thought
• 5:22
  this would be a apropos time to
• 5:25
  talk about one of your mission sets
• 5:28
  that you had which was aerial fire firefighting
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  because there's one hell of fire going on out
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  on the west coast right now and i'm sure
• 5:37
  they're employing some of those assets so you know
• 5:40
  yeah why not right right yeah
• 5:43
  down the valley fire on both sides of the airplane at least the airplane wasn't
• 5:48
  on fire was it no kidding yeah yeah it's i remember i was having a conversation
• 5:54
  with a friend of mine who eventually became the wing commander and he said to
• 5:57
  me once he said uh doing MAFs,
• 6:01
  which is what the Air Force and the Air National Guard does,
• 6:04
  which stands for Modular Airborne Firefighting System.
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  Which is its original name because it's not modular anymore.
• 6:10
  Now it's a single tank when they made the new tanks. But we kept the name because it was familiar.
• 6:16
  And he said to me, he said, man, I'll tell you what, fighting fires is a lot
• 6:20
  more dangerous than going to combat.
• 6:21
  And that was after a couple tours in Afghanistan. And my first thought was,
• 6:24
  oh, he's absolutely correct. It is.
• 6:28
  Because you're low, man, low and heavy and slow. And it is a challenging environment
• 6:33
  to operate in. You know, that movie they had a long time ago with Richard Dreyfuss
• 6:38
  and the other two people, Escapes. Right, yeah.
• 6:42
  What was that movie called? I'll look for it.
• 6:46
  Yeah, keep going. I'll look for it. About civilian firefighters.
• 6:50
  But, you know, they're in there and they're flying through the smoke and,
• 6:52
  you know, the flames are coming up. And, you know, we don't fly through the
• 6:55
  smoke. That's like flying through volcanic ash. That's bad.
• 6:58
  There's the bad stuff in the smoke. So we essentially build a fence around the fire.
• 7:04
  That's our job as aerial firefighters is to prevent it from spreading any further.
• 7:10
  And then just like combat, the guys on the ground really win the war.
• 7:14
  So those four firefighters on the ground, they go after it and burn it and get
• 7:19
  all the embers and get all the rest of the flames and stuff.
• 7:21
  And we just prevent the fire from jumping the line and having to do more fuel
• 7:25
  to keep going. So I kind of jumped in there with both feet. That's okay.
• 7:30
  I think, repeat, we might have found a title to this episode,
• 7:35
  Low, Heavy, and Slow. That's no way to go through life, son.
• 7:41
  No, it's not. You know, from a pilot's perspective, low, heavy,
• 7:46
  and slow, that's a really bad regime to be in.
• 7:51
  And you dumb crazy bastards are doing this on purpose.
• 7:56
  Right? that's not good for you holy smokes hang on so yeah we would fly at uh
• 8:04
  almost at max gross weight.
• 8:08
  Because the unit itself weighs 15,000 pounds of aluminum and all the stuff that goes on it.
• 8:14
  It's got an internal compressor on it at the front.
• 8:17
  But the C-130J model, the stretch version, now, granted, I haven't flown it
• 8:23
  in nine years, but it used to weigh, I think max gross weight was 166,000 pounds.
• 8:29
  The H model is 155,000 pounds, unless, of course, they raise that as well.
• 8:33
  And we would routinely take off at 160,000 pounds.
• 8:38
  And one of our limitations was we had to carry enough gas in the,
• 8:44
  you know, in the external or in the wingtips to keep the wings from bending
• 8:49
  up too much because the footwork was heavy.
• 8:52
  So, you know, just like on our commercial airplanes, you know,
• 8:55
  we have to, we burn the center gas first. So we did the same thing.
• 9:00
  And you're down there and you're, you know, and, and you might get pretty close to the ground.
• 9:05
  Like we would drop anywhere between 75 feet and 150 feet.
• 9:09
  And there are some AGL, right?
• 9:13
  And we would do modified contour, which you guys both know what that is.
• 9:18
  So can you describe that? Can you describe that for non-aviaters?
• 9:22
  So imagine you're flying over terrain and the terrain obviously varies, right?
• 9:27
  You start at 300 feet, let's just say, for that's what normal C-130 low-level
• 9:32
  tactical minimum altitude is, is 300 feet, day VFR, or day VMC. Hey, hold on.
• 9:39
  Yeah. Who's that? What was that? Someone's got something humming in the background.
• 9:44
  That was loud. No, you know what that is? What is that? That's the garage door
• 9:48
  my wife's coming to. Boom.
• 9:53
  My office sits right above the garage. There you go.
• 9:57
  What the hell is that homing sound? That's the firefighters coming to get you. Got to go back out.
• 10:06
  All right. Well, it's going to go down in a minute, so we'll know what it is next time.
• 10:10
  Uh-oh. Hold on. That was me. That was me. I'm fixing it, guys. I'm fixing it.
• 10:17
  We're on amateur hour right now. Yeah, we really are. I just,
• 10:21
  you know, it's one of those days.
• 10:23
  All right, we're back. Close the door to my office. Hang on one second.
• 10:26
  No, you're good. I don't want to hurry.
• 10:31
  Don't want to just catch you on the computer. What are you doing?
• 10:36
  Talking to two dudes on a computer.
• 10:40
  You're going to bring in and go, Phil, help me with the groceries. All right.
• 10:44
  All right. Too funny. You were talking about Max Gross weight,
• 10:48
  And then we talked about 70 to 150 feet AGL.
• 10:52
  And then modified contour is what you're about to describe.
• 10:54
  Yeah. So hold on. Hold on. I got to do this because we've already screwed everything up.
• 11:00
  Is the movie was always with Richard Dreyfuss, Holly Hunter.
• 11:03
  And it looks like John Goodman might have been the third. John Goodman was in there too.
• 11:06
  Yeah. Yes, he was. Always. Yep.
• 11:09
  So, but yeah, so that's, man.
• 11:13
  There you go. All right. So now we're back off our sidetrack.
• 11:16
  Low, heavy, slow. No way to go through life, son.
• 11:20
  So so modify contour so let's say you start at
• 11:23
  300 feet on a flat on a flat piece of terrain and as
• 11:26
  you go over terrain that may drop away from you and then terrain that may rise
• 11:31
  up to meet you you don't necessarily change that principal altitude you just
• 11:35
  kind of accept the hill comes to you and you now you cross that terrain at let's
• 11:39
  say 200 feet so if you're doing on a firefighting drop,
• 11:44
  you may cross the top of the ridge at 50 feet and then push the airplane over
• 11:50
  to contour the terrain as you go down.
• 11:55
  Let's say you go down the ridgeline or you go down the finger ridge that goes
• 12:00
  down into flatter terrain or something like that.
• 12:05
  And then when the lead plane, the Air Force and the International Guard is not
• 12:10
  allowed to do what's called direct attack, air attack, direct attack,
• 12:15
  where they get to call their own drops.
• 12:18
  We're not allowed to do that because it's not our principal mission.
• 12:21
  So we need the help from the lead plane guys.
• 12:24
  Okay. And the lead plane guys, they communicate with another kind of like the
• 12:29
  command and control of that particular fire, which is flying above the fire,
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  usually two to 3,000 feet and the incident commander or the deputy incident
• 12:40
  commander is in the airplane looking down on the fire trying to figure out a
• 12:44
  strategy where to put the next drop.
• 12:48
  Okay, so is that the person, we had Tammy Jo on episodes 35,
• 12:52
  36, somewhere in there, and when she first got out of the Navy,
• 12:55
  she did, not the firefighting itself, but flew in an airplane that guided airplanes
• 13:01
  in and out and tried to keep the airspace clear, that kind of thing. Is that who that is?
• 13:06
  That would be called air attack. Yeah, that's the command and control airplane
• 13:09
  that sits above the fire and manages all the resources.
• 13:14
  Yeah. So it's very much kind of like a battle. So there's an incident commander,
• 13:18
  and that person is responsible for all air and ground assets on that fire.
• 13:23
  So the Palisades fire would have one incident commander. And most likely.
• 13:29
  Since the Palisades are within Los Angeles County,
• 13:34
  that incident commander is probably a Los Angeles County or possibly Los Angeles
• 13:40
  City fire captain or something like that who is trying to figure out the best way to attack.
• 13:46
  You know, it could be, you know, the fire is described as, you know,
• 13:50
  there's the there's the origin of the fire.
• 13:53
  Then there's the head of the fire. And that's usually which way the fire is going.
• 13:58
  Right. It's the very top of the fire, which way it's traveling.
• 14:01
  Then you've got the left shoulder and the right shoulder.
• 14:04
  And then you have the left flank and the right flank. And he'll decide,
• 14:09
  you know, these houses, these people are in jeopardy. put a load of retardant
• 14:13
  on the head of the fire to prevent it from going any further towards the structures. So.
• 14:21
  We can get into different agencies. Oh, sorry.
• 14:27
  No, we're all walking on each other because we've got a delay today.
• 14:30
  So sorry about that. Keep going. My apologies.
• 14:33
  There's a list of agencies that fight fires in the United States, right?
• 14:37
  So in California, there's Cal Fire. That's the state's fire department.
• 14:42
  That's run by technically the governor of California.
• 14:45
  There's LA City, LA County.
• 14:48
  There's the U.S. Forest Service. There's BLM. There's Bureau of Indian Affairs.
• 14:53
  All of those agencies depending on where the fire is will be the lead agency
• 14:59
  on who fights that particular fire that sounds bureaucratical,
• 15:07
  that's my George Bush word my apologies bureaucratical.
• 15:12
  Bureaucratical there you go I'm going to ask I have a series of questions queued
• 15:18
  up but let's take one at a time And this is just a low-hanging fruit right here.
• 15:24
  Is this daytime only or is this day and night?
• 15:29
  For the U.S. Air Force and Air National Guard, daytime only. Okay.
• 15:36
  From official sunup to official sundown. So 30 minutes or 15 minutes prior to
• 15:41
  sunup to 15 minutes after sunset or something like that? Or 30 minutes?
• 15:46
  Yeah, I think we can go to 30 minutes after sunset, yeah. Yeah.
• 15:50
  So was it Civil Twilight?
• 15:52
  Okay. I can't remember. So obviously you were a military asset.
• 15:59
  How many units are there that we have in the states that do this mission?
• 16:06
  And are they all Air Guard or some Air Reserve components?
• 16:11
  There are four units, three Air Guard, one Air Force Reserve.
• 16:15
  The Air Force Reserve unit is at Colorado Springs.
• 16:19
  The Air National Guard units are the Channel Islands Air National Guard base
• 16:22
  in California, which is based at Point Magoo.
• 16:27
  The Reno Air National Guard, which is in Reno, obviously, Nevada Air National Guard.
• 16:32
  And the Cheyenne Air National Guard unit in Cheyenne, Wyoming.
• 16:37
  Okay. And each unit has two MAPS units.
• 16:42
  Two systems? Two systems, yeah. Each unit. So there's a total of eight systems.
• 16:47
  Okay. Okay, and are the systems are interchangeable, so you can roll one off
• 16:54
  and put it on a different tail, or is it tail-specific?
• 16:58
  Nope, they're completely interchangeable. So the way we used to do it at Channel
• 17:04
  Islands was maintenance would dedicate two airplanes at the beginning of the season.
• 17:09
  And we would put the numbers, the orange or Cerise numbers on the side of the planes.
• 17:16
  And the numbers represent the number, the MAPS unit number, the unit, the system's number.
• 17:23
  So our numbers were four and six.
• 17:27
  And that has been that way since 1971 when they first met them,
• 17:31
  when they first made them.
• 17:34
  Like Colorado Springs has five and something else.
• 17:37
  I can't remember what. I'd have to go back. look but yeah so
• 17:40
  saw some photos of that online when i was looking a little bit earlier
• 17:43
  um is that the is that the big serice number
• 17:46
  that they put on the tail then the number of the number unit
• 17:49
  math unit and then your call sign is
• 17:52
  mass and then whatever number you have so so
• 17:56
  we were mass four and mass six okay so
• 18:00
  and then what would happen
• 18:03
  is if you did a certain amount of drops as you
• 18:07
  know maintenance can only let the airplane fly for so long
• 18:09
  before it has to be inspected so if we had a really busy fire season those two
• 18:15
  tails would just be swapped out at some point when we reach the minimum number
• 18:19
  of hours and the minimum number of sorties we would swap it to a new tail and
• 18:24
  then that airplane would go that original airplane would go get inspected,
• 18:27
  and okay it might get worked back into the system yeah that was actually one
• 18:32
  of my questions how do the firefighting missions impact the aircraft's structural
• 18:35
  integrity and maintenance schedule and all that.
• 18:38
  So they're going to need extra maintenance because they're flying heavy?
• 18:41
  Correct. Yeah. So what we did, maintenance decided that for every hour it flew
• 18:46
  MAPS, it was equivalent to five hours of normal flight time. Oh, wow.
• 18:52
  Yeah. So it was a lot of flight time as compared to what a normal operational mission would be.
• 19:01
  So they got inspected a lot quicker.
• 19:04
  So usually after about.
• 19:08
  I think it was probably 60 hours we'd pull the unit off and then we would put
• 19:14
  it on another airplane you can't hold me to those numbers because i you know
• 19:17
  things have probably changed,
• 19:19
  but it's something along those lines yeah so i've put up an overlay that's the
• 19:26
  picture of them pushing that onto the airplane loading it on it is yeah yeah
• 19:31
  and you can see where that guy's hand is on the right bottom left yeah on the
• 19:36
  bottom left there yeah so that's what's called the,
• 19:39
  disseminate the the dissemination tube and it goes out a left paratroop door
• 19:44
  and it kind of makes an s pattern it goes out the door and then it hangs a left
• 19:49
  and it streamlines the fuselage as it as it faces aft okay and then that's the
• 19:56
  discharge that's the discharge for the retardant That's the discharge. Yeah.
• 20:00
  Okay. How long does it take to load and then how long does it take to unload
• 20:03
  and how, and how much quantity retardant is in there?
• 20:06
  So I, I have been told from the time they pull the MAPS unit out of the hangar
• 20:11
  until they put it on the airplane, it takes about four hours for them to book
• 20:15
  it all up in the airplane.
• 20:18
  Since you leave it on there, the fire tanker bases all over the west,
• 20:23
  they have what are called pits. And they're very much like a NASCAR race, right?
• 20:27
  So you kind of pull the airplane into this pit, and off to the side is usually
• 20:32
  an inflatable bathtub-type looking thing.
• 20:35
  And it's where the dry retardant goes in and mixes with water,
• 20:40
  makes the sludge, and then they have a pump that pumps it into the airplane from a hose.
• 20:45
  So it's very much like NASCAR. They plug it into the side of the unit,
• 20:47
  they plug in fuel at the same time, and they plug in air to compress it because
• 20:53
  it needs air to shoot out.
• 20:54
  So they do all three of those. And honestly, to do that, 15 minutes.
• 21:00
  And are you able to do it with the engines running or do you got to shut down?
• 21:04
  No, we shut down. Yeah. Okay. That's a safety thing.
• 21:09
  Sure. Yeah, there's a lot of moving parts out there. The Air Force safety chicken
• 21:12
  is out there running around with his hat on and his bullhorn telling you he can't do that.
• 21:17
  Yeah the safety chicken so wow
• 21:22
  how how what is the true oh there's a good picture there you go that's exactly
• 21:28
  what it looks like just like that nice job sticks thank you yeah welcome aboard
• 21:33
  sticks by the way so what is the terrain what kind of trainings involved for the crew to be.
• 21:42
  Qualified to do this yeah because you
• 21:45
  don't just get in and do that no so
• 21:48
  first the unit will select the people that they want to put into the mission
• 21:53
  every year and usually it's two to three new people and it's also depending
• 21:58
  on the attrition from the last year right you know the old guys retire and they
• 22:02
  got to upgrade new guys so usually two to three and you become a Co-pilot first, okay?
• 22:07
  I don't know what the training requirements are now to upgrade the aircraft
• 22:11
  commander but like everything else in the military is subjective and,
• 22:15
  So you will get selected to be a co-pilot. Then you go through training.
• 22:20
  That training happens every year. It used to happen in May, but it has now started
• 22:24
  to happen in February because the fire season seems to get longer and longer.
• 22:31
  And we, in the West Coast, we wouldn't start fighting fires until probably late July, August.
• 22:39
  Now, I mean, it's January. We're fighting fires in January. I've got to be honest.
• 22:44
  In the 18 years I did it, I'd never fought fires in January. That's unprecedented.
• 22:47
  So, anyway. Well, let me ask that, jump in then and ask, because right now the
• 22:51
  Santa Anas are going on. Are they early or are they late?
• 22:54
  They seem late to me. Usually they're a fall type thing. Okay.
• 22:59
  Okay. That's been my experience. Like Thanksgiving timeframe,
• 23:02
  October, November, early December. Yeah. Okay.
• 23:05
  We have had fires on Thanksgiving Day where we have been dropping on Thanksgiving Day. I've seen that.
• 23:12
  Anyway, so back to training. So what happens is it's a combined training event,
• 23:16
  and usually it's two MAPS units, in other words,
• 23:20
  like Cheyenne and Channel Islands get together, and then the Forest Service,
• 23:26
  BLM, and CAL FIRE all come to this one large training event at whatever base they choose.
• 23:32
  Every year, somebody switches hosting it.
• 23:35
  So let's just say it's in California.
• 23:37
  So CAL FIRE with both their, not their tankers, but their lead planes come.
• 23:43
  Forest Service and BLM come with their lead planes. And then all four units,
• 23:50
  MAPS units, and when I say MAPS units, I mean the system itself.
• 23:54
  All four systems come with two airplanes apiece from each unit.
• 23:57
  And then we all fly. by we go to training drop areas and we just drop water.
• 24:03
  We don't drop any retardant, because retardant is expensive.
• 24:06
  Are you dropping on a fire? Did they, did they light a fire?
• 24:09
  No, we're just dropping on trees, you know, whatever. Okay.
• 24:12
  The thing that surprised, we're dropping on squirrels. The thing that surprised
• 24:18
  me was when I first started doing this was that.
• 24:21
  That each agency has its own land like that
• 24:25
  forest like the los padres national forest is owned
• 24:28
  by the forest service and certain land in
• 24:30
  other parts of the country are owned by bureau of
• 24:33
  land management blm and then cal fire
• 24:36
  has their own land and everyone has kind of their own responsibilities so
• 24:40
  when the fire starts on forest service land their incident
• 24:43
  commander is a forest service employee and
• 24:47
  they are at they're responsible to fight that fire and
• 24:50
  they can request assets from the
• 24:54
  military or from civilian assets from the
• 24:57
  forest service assets they can they can get them from just
• 24:59
  about anybody so and then they fight the
• 25:02
  fire as they see fit so and the
• 25:05
  other thing that surprised me was oh go ahead the
• 25:09
  other thing that surprised me the most was that the forest
• 25:12
  service blm and cal fire have
• 25:16
  different what do
• 25:19
  i want to say it have different different strategies on how
• 25:22
  to fight fires the forest service will let
• 25:25
  a fire burn if it's not threatening people or structures they want
• 25:28
  to clear it out cal fire they want to put out fires no matter where they are
• 25:34
  blm is the same so it it can be interesting to see a forest fire but it's not
• 25:42
  near any structures of people and they'll just let it burn for a while.
• 25:45
  And and quite frankly i've been told that that's a good thing they get rid of
• 25:49
  the stuff on the bottom of the forest, they get rid of dead trees,
• 25:52
  stuff that becomes fuel later on.
• 25:54
  Do they at least put fire breaks around it so that it won't threaten?
• 25:58
  Yes, I believe they do. Yeah, and if it gets really, really big,
• 26:02
  yeah, of course, they'll start to do that.
• 26:04
  But that's some of the over, you know, command and control type stuff that doesn't
• 26:09
  involve the flyers themselves.
• 26:11
  It sounds like there's some significant competing interest there,
• 26:16
  depending on whose territory it's in. As we all know, the federal government
• 26:21
  can be territorial at times. What?
• 26:25
  Weird. Can you imagine? Yeah. It's weird.
• 26:29
  So a quick question I have on it, though, is like, in this case,
• 26:32
  and I put up a map of it there, there's just fire everywhere.
• 26:36
  And it's more than one fire.
• 26:38
  And so you've got several different pieces of airspace being controlled by different people?
• 26:44
  And do you, I'm assuming, or no? Well, what
• 26:48
  you're looking at at least on this picture is mostly Los
• 26:52
  Angeles County I mean as you get up and as you get
• 26:54
  near Oxnard and as you get near Santa Barbara that becomes Ventura County and
• 26:58
  Santa Barbara County Okay And as you come out towards San Bernardino that becomes
• 27:03
  San Bernardino County and farther out so So each one of those counties will
• 27:09
  have a Person who works for those counties be the incident commander,
• 27:14
  Most likely Okay.
• 27:19
  And is your, is your unit participating right now? Do you know?
• 27:23
  We are. Yeah, they are. Yeah. Yeah. The MAPS commander is also,
• 27:28
  also applies for my airline.
• 27:29
  So, and I know him pretty well. So I, I just text him periodically,
• 27:32
  you know, Hey, you guys are being, you know, I'm being safe because it's,
• 27:35
  it's both challenging and it can be a dangerous mission at the same time.
• 27:39
  And all you got to do is watch YouTube and see how close those guys get to the
• 27:42
  ground to realize how, how critical.
• 27:45
  Yeah, there you go. There's MAPS 6. good so and
• 27:49
  i'm guessing it's it's only a little bit exhausting on
• 27:53
  a good day yes the and i
• 27:56
  know the record i have been told is 21
• 27:59
  drops in a day and that was accomplished in boise idaho when the when basically
• 28:06
  the hills above the airport were burning so 21 drops so that's 21 takeoffs 21
• 28:12
  landings 21 checklists 21 you know that's a lot that's a lot the most doors going down.
• 28:19
  Oh yeah sorry garage doors going down i guess i
• 28:22
  guess she's leaving yeah there you go she's had enough of you
• 28:25
  so the
• 28:30
  most i've ever done in a day is 14 and i can tell you my my
• 28:33
  rear end was pretty tired do you
• 28:37
  have a i think you do i think i've
• 28:40
  seen it do you have a cockpit video of you
• 28:43
  doing a mass delivery i do
• 28:46
  yeah i got a bunch of them could you share with that with us oh
• 28:49
  yeah on our website yeah sure would you be
• 28:52
  willing to do that sure okay yeah up
• 28:55
  on the website with this episode so i asked you
• 28:57
  about the training but you know
• 29:00
  specifically you know i know
• 29:03
  that we don't practice doing low levels
• 29:07
  slow and low and
• 29:10
  heavy so do you do a little flying around you know just i mean do you or is
• 29:18
  this all just done hey we're gonna we're gonna run in we're gonna drop i mean
• 29:21
  because obviously there's some serious threats involved there low slow head
• 29:25
  particularly terrain and what what kind of maneuvering limits do you put on yourself.
• 29:30
  And I mean, talk us through that.
• 29:32
  So let's say you take an average training sorting, right?
• 29:36
  And what'll happen is you'll take off, you'll join up with the lead plane and
• 29:41
  the lead plane pilot will say, what would you guys like to see?
• 29:45
  Do you want to, do you want to, do you want a flat drop?
• 29:47
  Do you want a medium drop? Do you want a really steep drop?
• 29:51
  How long do you want your final, all those kinds of things. So what'll happen is.
• 29:58
  If you're a MAPS instructor in the right seat and you're teaching a new MAPS
• 30:02
  aircraft commander who's never flown MAPS before, now he's in the left seat,
• 30:05
  you'll just describe all those aerodynamic forces that are going to happen and
• 30:10
  how to strategize to, depending on the steepness and the severity of the drop,
• 30:20
  how the airplane's going to fly and, most importantly, what your escape is.
• 30:25
  So you never want to drop downhill only to find
• 30:27
  out that you're flying right into another hill right so
• 30:31
  you got to kind of figure out okay i'm going to drop downhill and
• 30:34
  if let's say i lose an engine the the
• 30:37
  the maps unit malfunctions and i can't get
• 30:40
  the retardant off where am i going most of the time when you're dropping downhill
• 30:45
  on the side of a mountain you just keep going straight you get you got enough
• 30:48
  airspeed the other big problem is that when you push the button and the retardant
• 30:54
  comes out of that pinnacle in the back of the airplane,
• 30:58
  it actually accelerates the airplane like a jet engine. Just a little bit.
• 31:04
  Is it agile because it's coming only out of one side?
• 31:08
  No, not enough to be... Oh, because it's coming straight out the back.
• 31:11
  It's coming straight out, because it's streamlining.
• 31:14
  So you don't really notice it, but you do notice the acceleration.
• 31:17
  And the other problem is that in the C-130, both the J model and the H model,
• 31:22
  you're gonna most likely drop at 100% flaps, which is all the way down,
• 31:27
  which in an airliner is about 30% flaps. Would you agree with that?
• 31:30
  30, 40, something like that? Yeah, 30, 40 degree flaps here.
• 31:34
  You put 100% when you're going downhill, and that's so you can get really slow at the top of the hill.
• 31:39
  Like, I've had the airplane in the J model, it will actually,
• 31:44
  you know, the GPWS will actually say, stall, stall, stall.
• 31:50
  And I have gotten it right to the stall message at the top of the ridge,
• 31:53
  and then you unload and push over down the ridge, and the airplane accelerates quickly.
• 31:59
  And the biggest thing now for co-pilots
• 32:02
  is he's holding on to the flap handle holding on
• 32:05
  to the button and he's pushing the button and he's
• 32:08
  watching the airspeed to modulate the flaps up
• 32:11
  so that you don't overspeed the flaps because it goes it goes like that it goes
• 32:16
  very quick flaps on speed to 50 so to speak as yeah exactly so there's a lot
• 32:25
  of dynamics happening That picture that you guys just showed of MAF-6 coming downhill,
• 32:29
  you can kind of analyze what configuration the airplane's in.
• 32:33
  And so the aircraft commander, the pilot flying the airplane,
• 32:37
  his only job is not to hit the ground.
• 32:40
  There you go. So you can see the flaps are down, but they're probably on their
• 32:45
  way up because that's probably halfway through the drop.
• 32:48
  And it takes about six seconds for all 3,000 gallons to come out of the back of that thing.
• 32:54
  Six seconds. That's fast. I mean, that's fast.
• 32:59
  And people have asked me about the CG change, and I got to be honest.
• 33:04
  I have never noticed the CG change.
• 33:08
  I mean, obviously there is one, but it happens so quickly that...
• 33:15
  It's never been it's never really been a factor so 500 gallons
• 33:18
  a second for marine math there oh it goes quick
• 33:21
  man it goes quick yeah so and your biggest thing you're
• 33:24
  like okay don't want to fly in the smoke oh and
• 33:27
  you have a lead plane in front of you at the same time yeah so
• 33:30
  you know there's a lot of dynamics going on uh
• 33:34
  when you're important not to hit that guy you know yeah yeah i
• 33:38
  used to um i i used to tell them because
• 33:41
  we treat a we treat getting ready to drop onto a fire
• 33:44
  very much like like a pattern in an airport right
• 33:47
  you got downwind you got crosswind you got final or you
• 33:50
  got base you got final and i used to usually you're about 500 feet apart from
• 33:57
  the lead plane the lead plane's a king air queen air something like that it's
• 34:01
  got a smoke generator so it'll call your drop by popping smoke and then when
• 34:06
  you fly through the smoke you push the button.
• 34:08
  So sweet okay which is really nice
• 34:11
  it used to be we used to use ground ground reference
• 34:14
  points but that that didn't
• 34:17
  that that wasn't as accurate well how about how is
• 34:20
  that affected by these you know 60 mile an hour winds
• 34:23
  that the san anis a lot which is which
• 34:26
  is why you want to drop low to the ground there is
• 34:29
  a video on youtube that i
• 34:32
  saw somewhere it's of a cal fire c-130
• 34:35
  and he's kind of dropping like the the ridge
• 34:38
  kind of comes down like this and he's dropping along the ridge
• 34:41
  so obviously the train falls away from him and the wind is blowing pretty hard
• 34:46
  and this just happened the other day and he pushes the button and you can see
• 34:49
  all of the retardant just drifting away from the terrain so and so you have
• 34:56
  to you have to figure out okay how low am I gonna go versus.
• 35:02
  The retardant effectiveness at this altitude versus the wind versus all those kinds of things.
• 35:07
  So it's, it's, you know, you look at it like you're landed on a strong crosswind
• 35:11
  and you go, okay, I got to put it right there.
• 35:12
  So I got to be upwind to, you know, half a wing length or, or just outside the
• 35:16
  wind or something like that.
• 35:17
  Okay. So, and then you've got all, all kinds of different airplanes.
• 35:21
  We were talking pre-show, you know, you got DC 10s, you got C one thirties.
• 35:26
  It looks like the, there's the old flying boat Catalinas are somehow involved too.
• 35:30
  Are there's the guys that scoop up their water from the, from what those are
• 35:34
  called they're made in canada and those guys,
• 35:37
  there there used to be i think there used
• 35:40
  to be like two of them in the world but there's probably a lot more by now
• 35:43
  okay that looks terrifying it does
• 35:47
  look it does i've never shared a tanker base with them so i so i i've never
• 35:52
  had an opportunity to talk to them personally we used to go to mcclellan in
• 35:57
  sacramento a lot that's a huge uh cal fire tanker base up there and we were
• 36:01
  We're based with the DC-10, the 10 tanker guys.
• 36:05
  And we would go over and we'd have lunch with them and talk to them about it.
• 36:08
  And they'd give us a tour of the airplane and a bunch of other things and just see how they operated.
• 36:13
  And I have dropped behind the DC-10 before. And when I say that, I just mean after him.
• 36:20
  The way it works is if you get to a fire and you check in with the lead plane,
• 36:26
  because every fire has a TFR around it. Right.
• 36:28
  So only the people who are operating in the fire can go. Bill, what's a TFR stand for?
• 36:35
  Temporary flight there you go sorry i wouldn't try to i wouldn't try to stop
• 36:39
  the dummy but you know we we threw out a lot of acronyms around here we want
• 36:43
  to make sure everybody knows what we're talking about we don't do a lot of tfr
• 36:46
  flying in the 787 anymore so i've forgotten,
• 36:52
  turned into a lazy airline pilot so anyhow so
• 36:56
  sticks found a picture of it if you if you go watch our youtube or
• 36:59
  rumble feed on this that's a canadair c215 he
• 37:03
  found and put the banner up a little bit ago so yeah those guys do a lot of
• 37:07
  drops a day man they don't they never have to land you know they hit a lake
• 37:10
  they hit a i guess i last i saw on on the news was they were going out to the
• 37:15
  pacific ocean and picking up salt water huh but salt water will damage buildings
• 37:20
  and oh never mind what about the fire.
• 37:27
  Yeah sorry my living
• 37:31
  room is burning down maybe we should use just anything we can get
• 37:33
  so sure right yeah so what
• 37:37
  was i talking about well you're talking about dropping behind the the
• 37:40
  dc-10 and the other number you threw out before that
• 37:44
  you were telling me this they got 10 000 gallons
• 37:47
  so they're three times as much fire retardant there's the c-130 they are yes
• 37:52
  okay the thing that i have been told and i never flew the dc-10 so i don't know
• 37:57
  but the dash 30 has a lot more power and it does a lot more model repeat i did
• 38:03
  i flew the dash 10 and the dash 30 the dash 30.
• 38:07
  Can has as much thrust on two engines as a dash 10 does on three oh wow yeah
• 38:13
  it's it's that much more it's like 20 000 pounds per engine on a dash 10 and
• 38:17
  30 000 pounds per engine on a dash 30.
• 38:20
  So it's very much like a c130j compared to an
• 38:23
  h model okay we have we have the same amount of power
• 38:26
  with three engines that they have it with with four so ragger and
• 38:29
  it's much more it's much more slick ragger anyway so what you do is you what
• 38:34
  you check in the lead plane before you get to the tfr okay and he says okay
• 38:39
  you're cleared in the tfr uh i'm gonna drop with tanker 10 now so just join
• 38:44
  up behind him so what you do is you stack about 500 feet above,
• 38:48
  i would put him in the left you know in the left knee window down there in the
• 38:52
  herc and I would just fly just outside his radius and watch where he was going to drop.
• 38:58
  Because most likely, I was just going to tag on to the end of his line and extend his drop.
• 39:04
  And that way I could see the lead plane and I could see the tanker.
• 39:07
  And we're always doing left-hand turns, just like, you know, NASCAR.
• 39:10
  Okay. And as soon as he drops, he peels off to the right. And where I am,
• 39:15
  now I can just drop in right behind the lead plane.
• 39:18
  We don't have to waste any time and we can go right to work. So...
• 39:23
  Which is kind of nice. That's awesome. And then are you dropping on the fire or around the fire?
• 39:30
  What are you dropping? So our job is to build the fence around the fire to prevent
• 39:34
  the fire from getting any bigger.
• 39:36
  Okay. So that's why we drop in these lines. And also we're there to protect structures and people.
• 39:42
  So a lot of times if you go and you look at some of the fires that have happened
• 39:48
  in Ventura County in the last day or two, you'll see some of those retardant
• 39:52
  lines are right around the edges of houses.
• 39:55
  So what they're dropping is they're dropping 100 yards outside the house on
• 39:59
  the terrain, on the brush, so that the fire won't jump the brush and go into the house.
• 40:06
  So that's essentially the strategy behind air tankers.
• 40:10
  Now, if you have people in structures that are being threatened and they've
• 40:16
  got no place to go, then they may want you to drop on them.
• 40:19
  I have done that before, but they also might want to find cover at the same
• 40:23
  time because it's you know it weighs 10 pounds a gallon so getting hit by something
• 40:28
  that weighs 10 pounds a gallon 10 pounds a gallon and you're dropping 3 000
• 40:31
  gallons on them oh 30 pounds that could flatten out yeah yeah.
• 40:39
  What does that retardant look smell feel feel like is it is it all is it pure
• 40:45
  liquid is there powdery in it or I'm assuming that whatever's in there is to make it more residual.
• 40:53
  Yeah, so it's called Foz Check. I've got to be honest, I don't know who it's
• 40:56
  made by, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was made by Dow Chemical. What are the odds?
• 41:01
  It is. And there's a scientist out there. Start the fire, finish the fire.
• 41:05
  Yeah, you might as well. Yeah, it's a circle of money. A little napalm,
• 41:11
  then a little retardant.
• 41:12
  Yeah, it works. But what was I going to say?
• 41:16
  Oh, sorry. Oh, no, I was asking you about what it's like, and is it sticky,
• 41:20
  and what sort I'm looking for. What's it taste like?
• 41:23
  Are you coming out of there orange after doing a bunch of drops?
• 41:27
  I mean, does it get, you know.
• 41:29
  Okay. No, not really. So the Lugmasters in the back may get a little bit like
• 41:32
  on their boots or something, but it's, you know, it's toxic.
• 41:35
  First of all, it's a combination of fertilizer, dye marker, and fire retardant.
• 41:41
  And there's a scientist out there who will correct me, I'm sure.
• 41:45
  But, you know, my job wasn't to know the compounds of the fire retardant.
• 41:48
  It was just to put it where they wanted it.
• 41:50
  But it shows up in, like, remember the old iced tea mix that would come powdered
• 41:55
  and you'd add water to it? And it would make ice tea. Remember that?
• 41:59
  It's very much like that. We dump in this dry Foscheck, they mix water,
• 42:03
  and it goes from water's about, what, 6.7 pounds per gallon,
• 42:07
  and it goes to 10 pounds. Makes it really sludgy.
• 42:09
  And it sticks to the branches and the ground and all that stuff and prevents them from burning.
• 42:16
  Nice. That's what it looks like. I don't know what it smells like.
• 42:20
  Because I never bothered.
• 42:22
  Double L, the MAF unit that shoots this out that chute, the nozzle.
• 42:29
  I can't remember. You had a name for it.
• 42:33
  You say it's compressed, so it's compressed air is pushing it out, or is there a pump?
• 42:38
  It's running, it's shoving it out? It's compressed air.
• 42:42
  And I have forgotten, fellas, how much compressed air it is or what the PSI
• 42:47
  is. But the new units themselves have an onboard compressor that is powered
• 42:54
  by the onboard electrical system in the C-130.
• 42:57
  It's at the front of the cargo compartment, and it will compress the tank for drop.
• 43:03
  The problem with that onboard compressor is it's not as strong as the compressors at the tanker base.
• 43:09
  So you can get enough air to compress at the tanker base in about 5 minutes
• 43:15
  whereas it may take up to 20 if you do it internally on the airplane,
• 43:20
  so a lot of times if we're going to a fire that's a ways away and we need to
• 43:26
  compress we just compress on the way to the fire and it sounds kind of like
• 43:30
  you got a lawnmower in the back of the airplane it's just chugging right along yeah.
• 43:36
  It's kind of loud. It sounds like my garage door as it opens. Okay.
• 43:42
  And so you kind of alluded to this, but let me just make sure.
• 43:45
  So the crew component on your MAFs airplane is the same as basically a combat sortie would be.
• 43:52
  You've got two loads and two pilots.
• 43:55
  And I guess on a J, you don't have an engineer.
• 43:59
  Yeah, on the J model, you've got two pilots and two loadmasters.
• 44:02
  That's it. In the H, you've got an engineer. Do you have a nav in the H?
• 44:06
  Yeah. yeah so then you'd have an app on board so
• 44:09
  yeah so you guys it's just a normal crew crew of
• 44:12
  four two pilots two loads and could
• 44:15
  you just kind of walk us through you just
• 44:19
  landed you're in the middle of fire fighting a fire somewhere you just landed
• 44:23
  and you got to get re you got to get re refilled replenished right so what what's
• 44:30
  the timeline from the time you shut all four down to the time you start all
• 44:34
  four up and go again on it when you got a real burner going,
• 44:38
  so let's say we just land we're taxing in we shut down the outboard engines,
• 44:42
  so that as we pull into the pit because we're pretty close we're we're probably.
• 44:49
  Stretching air force safety standards a little
• 44:52
  bit as we pull into the pit because you got guys from
• 44:55
  the forest service from the manufacturer of the foz check
• 44:57
  whoever that are not used to being around c-130s although they probably
• 45:00
  are now that are going to get close to the airplane you shut down
• 45:03
  the outboards first you pull into the pit you shut down the inboards and
• 45:07
  then what they do is they hook
• 45:10
  up retardant into the retardant valve does
• 45:15
  that go through the left paratroop door they open the
• 45:17
  left paratroop door and shove it ironically it goes through the right paratroop
• 45:21
  door oh so you gotta bring it around to the
• 45:23
  back of the airplane and then plugging it okay so you got
• 45:27
  retardant coming on the airplane on the unit on the
• 45:30
  right hand side and then you have pressurization coming
• 45:33
  on to the right hand side and then most likely
• 45:37
  if you need gas and sometimes you don't if the
• 45:39
  fire is really close you can go out and back a couple of times without having
• 45:42
  to get gas but you got to remember you need gas in the
• 45:45
  outboard wingtips right to balance it
• 45:48
  out right for structural integrity and you
• 45:50
  might need gas and quite frankly gas is the
• 45:53
  longest thing to refuel and
• 45:56
  when i say longest wow maybe three extra minutes
• 45:59
  longer okay okay okay so you
• 46:02
  could probably from the time you shut down until the time
• 46:05
  you're ready to crank up again 15 20 minutes that's
• 46:09
  pretty quick turnaround time pretty quick you know obviously you
• 46:12
  don't fill up the tanks full of gas usually i remember you're already heavy.
• 46:17
  Enough yeah you're already heavy enough i remember i couldn't take more than.
• 46:20
  About 24 000 pounds of fuel and the airplane normally takes you know 42 so that
• 46:26
  was the most i could take just for structural integrity sure.
• 46:31
  And so I'm guessing it's one pass, drop all, right?
• 46:36
  You don't drop a little and then come back and drop a little. It's one pass, drop all.
• 46:40
  Actually, the new unit, you could drop a little.
• 46:43
  We used to call it painting. So it's got a trigger. So as long as you hold the
• 46:47
  trigger, the little pintle in the back opens and the retardant comes out.
• 46:52
  As soon as you release the trigger, the pintle stops. So you could drop a little
• 46:56
  bit, go fly around and hit it from a different rate and push,
• 46:59
  pull it again and drop the rest of it.
• 47:01
  So who has control the trigger?
• 47:04
  So the co-pilot, the guy in the right seat, is the only person who controls
• 47:09
  the trigger. And the guy in the left seat does all the flying.
• 47:12
  And there's no, like, swapping back and forth.
• 47:15
  So you'd have to switch seats.
• 47:18
  And that's, you know, I mean, if you put two MAPS aircraft commanders together,
• 47:22
  depending on, you know, how they want to do it, they'll say,
• 47:25
  hey, listen, today I'll be in the left seat, you be in the right seat,
• 47:28
  and then tomorrow we'll swap.
• 47:30
  Especially if you're working a pretty active fire like palisades fire
• 47:33
  yeah and how many days in a row have you
• 47:35
  ever done i have done two weeks straight i with a day off in between sure oh
• 47:43
  i got i can only 79 79 drops in 12 days that's it i don't think that's walk
• 47:52
  much after that i was Yeah, right.
• 47:55
  Just pour you out of the airplane.
• 47:58
  I remember I did my last drop.
• 48:00
  I was barely horizontal. I was, you know, I could barely, I could barely stand up.
• 48:06
  So I was barely vertical, but I remember on the last day we were dropping in
• 48:09
  Boise and my relief showed up and I thought, dude, I just want to get on Alaska
• 48:14
  Airlines and go home so bad. I can't even, I'm so tired.
• 48:17
  You know the first couple days you're excited you know you're dropping on
• 48:20
  a fire you're doing you're doing an actual mission where
• 48:23
  you're saving people and you're saving property and you're doing something that's
• 48:26
  really good and by by by the
• 48:29
  10th day you're so tired that the only.
• 48:31
  Thing you want to do is just go lay on the couch somewhere because you're just
• 48:34
  exhausted so get it yeah
• 48:38
  it can get it can get challenging at least in combat you know
• 48:40
  at least in afghanistan you were flying one day one day off one
• 48:43
  day on one day off yeah so most of the
• 48:46
  time but yeah so currency
• 48:50
  currency once once fire
• 48:52
  season starts and everybody's trained up is there
• 48:56
  like you know you have to have a takeoff approach and landing every
• 48:59
  30 days to maintain your currency just to fly
• 49:01
  the airplane is there any currency requirements for
• 49:05
  for the maths once fire season starts when i
• 49:09
  did it there was not okay you had to have
• 49:11
  to upgrade to go from copot to aircraft commander
• 49:14
  and mass you had to have a certain amount of actual drops and
• 49:18
  i i gotta be honest i can't remember what that number was but it was probably like
• 49:21
  10 probably something like that before you
• 49:25
  could upgrade and then if you were going to be a mass instructor you had
• 49:28
  to have you had to be drop on a certain number
• 49:31
  of fires and a certain number of drops so but
• 49:35
  honestly usually before you get selected to
• 49:38
  be a mavs co-pilot you've probably been in the unit four years probably as a
• 49:43
  guard or reserve guy and you're already checked out as aircraft commander and
• 49:47
  already checked out yeah yeah got it and you know and it's all depending on
• 49:51
  your confidence too if you know if you're kind of a schmo then they're probably
• 49:55
  not gonna upgrade you but.
• 49:58
  Could you define as schmo is that an acronym stands for something that's a technical
• 50:02
  term it probably it probably is an acronym but i don't know it might be yiddish like stupid mother.
• 50:12
  Yeah all right the funny part is whoever whoever's listening is when i say the
• 50:16
  word schmo they're probably like oh yeah i know that guy yeah everybody knows
• 50:21
  this who the schmo is trust me yeah everybody knows so okay i'm gonna ask you
• 50:26
  this because it's kind of a,
• 50:27
  seems like a silly question but you're you're gonna get where i'm going with
• 50:30
  this so other than the obvious low to the ground slow heavy what what threats
• 50:37
  are there involving you know my question exactly yeah flying into these fires
• 50:42
  but what kind of threats besides the low slow and heavy,
• 50:47
  The weather. Because that's weather. Okay. Thunderstorms make their own thunder,
• 50:52
  or fires make their own thunderstorms.
• 50:54
  And unfortunately, on July 1st, 2012, when Charlotte Air National Guard had
• 50:59
  C-130s, they were a MAPS unit for a really long time.
• 51:03
  They went to C-17s, but on that day, MAPS 7, which is no longer an active number
• 51:09
  because it was retired, crashed due to a microburst next to a fire they were just about to drop on.
• 51:16
  Shit. unfortunately killed the entire cockpit crew. Both load masters survived.
• 51:22
  And it happened at like two o'clock in the afternoon on a perfectly beautiful day.
• 51:29
  If, if you wanted to go back and look at the accident investigation.
• 51:33
  Essentially it wasn't the lead's fault, but he, he kind of thought it was his
• 51:39
  own fault, but it really wasn't.
• 51:41
  He flew through a microburst and according to his flight recorded data,
• 51:46
  Missed impacting the ground by 57 feet, I think it was.
• 51:50
  Oh, shit. This is the lead plane? Which is what kind of plane?
• 51:55
  Which is like a king air or queen air. Okay, okay, okay. It's a turboprop,
• 51:59
  twin-engine turboprop airplane with only one guy in it, right? So it's not heavy.
• 52:04
  And then Mavs was right behind them, 500 feet behind them, and they went through the same microburst.
• 52:09
  But the difference is the airplane weighs 155,000 pounds.
• 52:12
  They were only at 120 knots with the flaps at 100.
• 52:16
  Oh, my gosh. And they're only 200 feet above the ground. So they were, you know...
• 52:22
  They were in a serious amount of jeopardy, just based on their configuration,
• 52:26
  their airspeed, their weight, and where they were in proximity to the ground.
• 52:30
  Not going to power out of that.
• 52:32
  So that stopped military aerial firefighting for the rest of the year while
• 52:36
  the investigation happened.
• 52:37
  And then it drove some more restrictive flying around fires,
• 52:42
  depending on whether we had a thunderstorm or not, or whether microbursts were in the vicinity.
• 52:48
  And that prevented us from dropping on a bunch of fires. I don't know what it
• 52:52
  is now. I'm sure the program and some of the rules have matured over time.
• 52:55
  But, you know, the Air Force is very, as over the last 20 years,
• 53:00
  has become very averse to risk in any way.
• 53:05
  So my guess is that that rule for flying around thunderstorms is still,
• 53:11
  I think it was 25 miles, but I could be wrong. Somebody could correct me.
• 53:15
  But fires make their own thunderstorms, especially really big ones.
• 53:18
  Yeah so of course not much rain falls out of them
• 53:21
  just lightning to start more fires right yeah and
• 53:24
  then down draft let's start more fires exactly yeah
• 53:27
  and then and then here's a
• 53:29
  very good point the drones are now a threat because
• 53:32
  people don't get the hell out of the way no they
• 53:35
  want to take pictures of this fire you know no not your
• 53:38
  business no and you
• 53:41
  know the tfr drives some of that the temporary
• 53:44
  flight restriction see yeah but you know some nice schmo who
• 53:48
  went out to best buy and bought himself a drone isn't paying attention
• 53:51
  to that i mean you're supposed to but if if they don't they don't yeah yeah
• 53:58
  it's it it is it's definitely a dangerous mission and you know all those guys
• 54:03
  are they're they all volunteer for it and sure most guys most people men and
• 54:08
  women who joined the military want to do good in the world.
• 54:10
  And this is at the top of the do good list when you're trying to save people's houses.
• 54:16
  What raised the hair on the back of your neck the most when fighting fires?
• 54:22
  I remember dropping up in Northern California near Chico once and we were dropping
• 54:28
  for a blow a ridgeline and the ridge,
• 54:32
  the ridge was climbing up on the left-hand side and climbing up on the right
• 54:36
  hand side. So it was kind of like the star Wars Canyon.
• 54:38
  And we were coming down to fight a fire that was going up the red left ridgeline.
• 54:43
  And I just remember being in the right-hand seat and I was training a new aircraft
• 54:47
  commander. and I just remember thinking, this wing looks really close to those trees over there. Yeah.
• 54:54
  And I thought, and I said to him, I go, watch the trees. And he looked kind
• 54:58
  of, he kind of looked over at me and I said, dude, don't look at me. Look out that way.
• 55:03
  So anyway, so he kind of adjusted slightly to the right and got the trees.
• 55:07
  And there are more, there are more incidents or more examples of stuff like
• 55:11
  that. You know, you get down and you get down in the dirt.
• 55:14
  You don't want to fly through the smoke because now you can't see anything. so you
• 55:17
  can't see the terrain you can't see your escape you can't see anything else and
• 55:20
  i i did i did
• 55:23
  a long time ago when i was a new aircraft commander get dragged
• 55:26
  through a smoke very small smoke column and you
• 55:29
  know you lose sight for just a second and i remember i remember that really
• 55:33
  got my adrenaline going there for a second until we popped out so well i bet
• 55:38
  yeah right so you were ifr for you know a brief probably a second but it was
• 55:44
  but it was enough When you're 100 feet off the ground, one second is not a lot of time.
• 55:48
  I'm sure it seems like an eternity, and you're waiting for the mountain goat
• 55:51
  to show up right in front of you. Exactly. Congrats.
• 55:56
  Mountain goat that's running with fire on his back.
• 56:00
  Holy shit. What's he doing up here in his clouds, and why is he on fire?
• 56:09
  I remember going next to a fire in Idaho once, and as we went by it to drop
• 56:14
  on it, I felt the heat on the window as we went by. Oh, dear God.
• 56:18
  I'd never felt that before. I thought that got my attention.
• 56:22
  Oh, can I imagine? That'd get my attention for real. Right.
• 56:28
  I've had enough fun for today.
• 56:31
  No, Mr. Wizard, I don't want to be a firefighting pilot anymore.
• 56:35
  You know, Double L, I used to think not that much of you, but now after this
• 56:40
  conversation, I think a lot more of you.
• 56:43
  Well, I appreciate it because I barely think about myself at all. So, you know.
• 56:48
  And he never thinks about you.
• 56:53
  Yeah, that's a really complex and dangerous mission.
• 56:58
  And, you know, the fact that, you know, we do that, military guys do that, that's pretty awesome.
• 57:03
  And, you know, how fortunate that you got to do that. That's pretty cool.
• 57:08
  Do you have a velocity vector in a HUD?
• 57:11
  I'm sorry, say that again? Do you have a velocity vector and a HUD?
• 57:14
  Do you have a HUD and a velocity vector to help you avoid ground and terrain impact?
• 57:18
  In the J model, you do, yeah. But it's all, you know how it goes.
• 57:21
  After a while, you start looking through the HUD and you start,
• 57:24
  you're back to doing it the old-fashioned way. Right, right.
• 57:26
  I look at air speed. I don't even look at altitude. I'm using my,
• 57:31
  you know, Mark 82 eyeballs to look at the terrain.
• 57:34
  Because also, trees are not equal, right? So some trees are really tall.
• 57:38
  Some trees are really short.
• 57:40
  So you never know. what we call them snags every once in a while
• 57:42
  a tree taller tree will stick up out of the shorter trees and
• 57:45
  you don't see it right away so you got you're always looking for
• 57:48
  those snags and making sure that that they're not out there
• 57:51
  so that you know one piece of lumber doesn't go through the left wing you
• 57:54
  know you don't want to you don't want to do that so for
• 57:58
  those of you listening to the audio version of this only i'm going to cut out
• 58:02
  the video that sticks just played it goes about two minutes but it is fascinating
• 58:06
  so i highly encourage you to go to so there i was youtube feed and i'll pull
• 58:13
  up what that is we'll announce it here in a minute,
• 58:15
  but it's fascinating to watch and listen bitch and betty of course is very unhappy
• 58:21
  with the altitude and i heard her saying stall stall just like there you go and that sound with that,
• 58:30
  sound was that the retardant going out that's the retardant leaving the airplane
• 58:34
  yeah okay and i noticed a lot of other retardant already on the ground in in
• 58:38
  front of you uh at a couple.
• 58:40
  So a lot of times we just tag on to the red line at the end because you don't
• 58:45
  want to leave a gap, right?
• 58:46
  You'd rather overlap and make a line shorter as opposed to leave a gap and let
• 58:50
  the fire go through that gap. Sure.
• 58:53
  You can see, at least in that video, the more overhead cockpit video,
• 58:57
  you can see how close to the ground they are. Oh, yeah.
• 59:01
  And in some of that video, you can see the fire trucks that they go right over
• 59:04
  the top of. There's not a lot outside.
• 59:07
  It's kind of a lousy perspective. Yeah.
• 59:10
  You're that close to the ground. So those guys are probably 100 feet off the ground. That was low.
• 59:15
  There was supposed to be a software change in the J model that prevented the
• 59:20
  landing gear. Too low gear. Too low gear.
• 59:25
  Or altitude. But that's set by the radar altimeter.
• 59:28
  And usually we would set radar altimeter to 100 feet just to give you a heads up on how low you get.
• 59:34
  Because you guys both know that after you fly really low to the ground for a
• 59:38
  while, You start to realize you start to feel like you're high.
• 59:41
  So you get lower and lower and lower. Right. Right. Yeah, that's it. That's true.
• 59:45
  Is there not an override switch for that gypro system to turn it off?
• 59:48
  It's the ground proximity warning system.
• 59:50
  There's a mass override switch that specifically was made for those airplanes.
• 59:57
  Okay. So for whatever reason, it just wasn't overridden on that.
• 1:00:01
  Maybe it wasn't in yet or depending on the age of that video and all that. So, all right.
• 1:00:08
  But, yeah, it gets a little dicey, man. It gets, you know, and it gets those
• 1:00:12
  guys, those, you know, I want to call them kids now because they're a lot younger than me.
• 1:00:16
  But they're, you know, good for them.
• 1:00:20
  I'm glad they're doing it. So, and they're pretty talented. So.
• 1:00:24
  It's a challenging and sometimes surprising, surprising mission. Ooh.
• 1:00:31
  Yeah. That doesn't sound good. We don't like this. The only problem with them
• 1:00:35
  young like that is they're all NAFOT. No apparent fear of death.
• 1:00:41
  They're young and public. I would have to agree with you on that. Yeah.
• 1:00:47
  I have had the same problem, by the way. Yeah.
• 1:00:51
  Yeah. I think we all have. Fortunately, I'm past that. but oh my god yes i'm
• 1:00:56
  way past that now but i i know i i suffered from that for well quite a while,
• 1:01:01
  at least 50 years in your case fig whoa,
• 1:01:05
  past it now i i i you know and it was you just had to just trigger the thought
• 1:01:12
  i remember after doing uh the first air to air sortie i'd done with with trip
• 1:01:16
  you know okay our co yeah we we did a neutral pass and you know,
• 1:01:22
  you're supposed to have a 500 foot bubble and I was not going to let him have an inch.
• 1:01:27
  And so my 500 foot bubble was probably really a lot less than 500.
• 1:01:33
  And he says to me in the debrief, yeah, son, that wasn't 500 feet.
• 1:01:40
  Oh, was that too far out boss? I'm sorry, sir. I thought I'll get closer next time.
• 1:01:47
  Your 500 foot bubble is not 500 feet. yeah exactly
• 1:01:51
  oops yeah yeah so yeah
• 1:01:54
  it gets you know those guys on the palisades fire it was not
• 1:01:57
  far from the from point magoo so they probably dropped
• 1:02:00
  made a right hand turn went back up the coast you
• 1:02:04
  know refueled reloaded and it came right back yeah any
• 1:02:07
  any observations about what you see going on down there
• 1:02:10
  right now how they're working it what they're doing and that that's
• 1:02:13
  a real nebulous question i know you mean
• 1:02:17
  how the assets are being utilized yeah what you're yeah anything
• 1:02:20
  just any observations that you have that i probably
• 1:02:23
  wouldn't have not being familiar with firefighting operations in
• 1:02:26
  aircraft and and not understanding the the terrain and and proximity out in
• 1:02:30
  southern california of all those fires to each other and well everyone it's
• 1:02:35
  a little bit of a history lesson but everyone a long time ago probably saw the
• 1:02:38
  video of the c-130 losing its wings both wings folded up let's talk about that
• 1:02:44
  real quick because that's a horrific video,
• 1:02:47
  horrific you know i don't even watch it because it's you know when you fly the
• 1:02:50
  airplane you're like i you know i don't need to see that yeah give you the chills it is so.
• 1:02:56
  And then about a week later, and I don't remember the airplane,
• 1:02:59
  but it was an old World War II airplane, the same exact thing happened.
• 1:03:02
  Oh, yeah. The wings came up. Yeah. Remember that? It was in Colorado somewhere.
• 1:03:06
  Yeah. So what had happened was that C-130, I believe, was a B model,
• 1:03:10
  and the Air Force had donated it or they sold it or something along those lines.
• 1:03:15
  And the company that owned it never did the airworthiness directives over like 25 years.
• 1:03:20
  And the Air Force changed its wing boxes much sooner. And these guys didn't
• 1:03:24
  do any preventative maintenance at all.
• 1:03:26
  And basically the wing box just collapsed and the wings came off.
• 1:03:29
  So, which is some of the, you know, the civilian air tankers are for-profit businesses, right?
• 1:03:36
  And they have contracts through the force service, through BLM,
• 1:03:39
  through the government.
• 1:03:40
  And sometimes doing what the Air Force considers necessary maintenance,
• 1:03:44
  they don't consider necessary and they don't do it.
• 1:03:47
  I don't, you know, I'm kind of speaking from 25 years ago. It's possible that
• 1:03:51
  that will have changed over time and that the Forest Service has now driven
• 1:03:55
  greater inspection regulations than they have previously.
• 1:03:58
  But in 1971, when MAPS was created, it was created because there were forest
• 1:04:05
  fires that destroyed a bunch of DOD government and government buildings in New
• 1:04:10
  Mexico, like a lot of money.
• 1:04:13
  So at the time, the Secretary of Defense said, we need an aerial firefighting
• 1:04:16
  system to help us save DOD property because there was no DOD aerial firefighting
• 1:04:23
  apparatus at all. It was all civilian airplanes.
• 1:04:27
  So this unit was created nine months, and we used it from the Channel Islands
• 1:04:31
  or at the time the Van Nuys Air National Guard unit was the first test bed.
• 1:04:36
  And then they made eight of them and they distributed them to the units that
• 1:04:41
  had the most fire that was closest to the most wildland fires in the country, which was Cheyenne,
• 1:04:46
  Colorado Springs there was also, you know, there's a big forest on the east
• 1:04:49
  coast, so they made Charlotte and then they made us, because California.
• 1:04:54
  And over time, the units became, they just became old and they needed a replacement.
• 1:05:00
  So, and I think it was 2003, 2001, they started to contract with Aero Union
• 1:05:06
  in Chico, California to make a new unit because they were the original manufacturers
• 1:05:11
  of the old unit. So, they had this expertise.
• 1:05:13
  So, they finally got it and the new unit now holds 4,000 gallons,
• 1:05:18
  although we never filled it completely up for structural reasons.
• 1:05:24
  And then they gave them to the original units the original
• 1:05:26
  four that had the old ones because they had the most expertise and
• 1:05:30
  then after charlotte had their accident in 2012 and
• 1:05:34
  they went to c17s reno became a new maps unit so now it's the four units and
• 1:05:40
  if you look at the way forest fire behavior begins usually most forest fires
• 1:05:44
  start about colorado in about june right then they kind of work their way north
• 1:05:49
  up into idaho sorry up into montana and then over to Idaho,
• 1:05:53
  over to Washington, Oregon, and then they come back down to Southern California
• 1:05:56
  by the time November comes around.
• 1:05:57
  They kind of do this counterclockwise fire behavior where you can expect the fires to start.
• 1:06:06
  So what we did was we would leave California, we would go to Colorado,
• 1:06:10
  we would assist them in their fires, and then when we needed help in California,
• 1:06:16
  Cheyenne and Colorado Springs would come to California and they'd help us.
• 1:06:19
  So we all were very familiar with each other.
• 1:06:24
  And the Forest Service and BLM, we all got to know those folks as well,
• 1:06:29
  very well. And we all worked really well together.
• 1:06:33
  But the way it works is, by law, the civilian tankers have to be called first.
• 1:06:40
  And they have to be across. And then the military can be called.
• 1:06:44
  And it was to protect the economy of those civilian tanker companies.
• 1:06:49
  So the government isn't competing with them. Okay. Exactly.
• 1:06:53
  And they were a very vocal lobby group to say, when you write this law,
• 1:06:59
  which was called the Economy Act of 1972 or something, you have to say that the U.S.
• 1:07:05
  Military cannot come in and basically take our fires, for lack of a better phrase,
• 1:07:11
  until we're completely exhausted and we can't do it anymore.
• 1:07:15
  And since that C-130 and whatever that old World War II airplane crashed in
• 1:07:20
  Colorado back 20 years ago,
• 1:07:23
  the majority of the civilian firefighting companies have swapped out their old
• 1:07:29
  World War II airplanes for new civilian airliners like the DC-10,
• 1:07:33
  the 737. I saw an MB-80 in there.
• 1:07:36
  And so they're definitely becoming more competitive and their capabilities are greater.
• 1:07:44
  So when things get really, really bad, they call us, but they don't call us
• 1:07:48
  until things get really, really bad. Okay.
• 1:07:52
  So that's it. Thank you for that. I had no idea. It's a story very long. How is that?
• 1:07:57
  No, I appreciated the history of it, too. Yeah. Likewise.
• 1:08:01
  I never even thought about that, that, oh, yeah, if people are doing this for
• 1:08:04
  profit, you know. Yeah. It's like competing with the post office, you know.
• 1:08:12
  Gee, I wonder what companies do that. Look how that turned out.
• 1:08:15
  Did you guys ever see that scene in Pierce where the guy says,
• 1:08:17
  you know, what would happen if we didn't have the post office?
• 1:08:19
  And the guy goes, well, we have FedEx. That's why, you know.
• 1:08:24
  Exactly. So, oh, man. More trustworthy anyway.
• 1:08:29
  Yeah. So those guys are flying right now at Channel Islands.
• 1:08:32
  I think all eight units are there.
• 1:08:34
  So they've got eight airplanes there. They're probably flying.
• 1:08:37
  They're probably flying. They probably get launch orders right when they show
• 1:08:40
  up for the briefing in the morning. And they're probably flying until sunset.
• 1:08:44
  I bet. I bet it's like, you know, the Daytona 500.
• 1:08:49
  Yeah. With the crews refueling and re...
• 1:08:53
  What do you call that? Reslurry?
• 1:08:56
  Reservicing. Yeah. Reservicing the math. Yeah. So usually you get off,
• 1:09:01
  you know, if you shut down the airplane, you're flying.
• 1:09:03
  You're the copilot. You get off the airplane. You got 15 minutes.
• 1:09:06
  You can go to the bathroom, grab your box lunch, and then head back to the plane.
• 1:09:10
  And then you can eat your box lunch on the way to the fire.
• 1:09:14
  Eat your old box nasty on the way to the weenie roast. Oh, buddy.
• 1:09:19
  A couple of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a bag of chips,
• 1:09:21
  you know, stuff that will keep you going until the end of the day. Yeah.
• 1:09:25
  Yeah, all you need is calories, right? Right, exactly. Just a little energy.
• 1:09:29
  Keep it going. All right.
• 1:09:32
  Well, I think we're getting close to dark here on the East Coast,
• 1:09:36
  so it's probably time we land this airplane to keep it within regulations, you know.
• 1:09:42
  You can't fight fires in the dark with an airplane. No. The LL already told us that. Exactly.
• 1:09:47
  So we've— Do you guys want to hear something funny? Yeah, we do.
• 1:09:51
  There you go. The Air Force actually came to us once and said,
• 1:09:55
  can you guys fight fires on MBGs?
• 1:09:58
  Oh, dear God. You know, only a person who doesn't fly airplanes thought that that was a good idea.
• 1:10:06
  Yeah. So, you know, hold on a second.
• 1:10:10
  I get this, and I know Repeat gets this, but could you,
• 1:10:14
  just for somebody that maybe listening or listening or listening or listening
• 1:10:19
  or that doesn't know what looking through MVGs is like, can you explain how
• 1:10:22
  moronic that question was, please?
• 1:10:25
  Looking like through, you know, those, I want to call them soda straws,
• 1:10:28
  but they're a little wider than that. You know, the toilet paper rolls,
• 1:10:31
  imagine putting them up to your eyeballs and like that.
• 1:10:33
  You're looking through that. Oh, and it's green. The whole thing's green.
• 1:10:36
  So how are you going to distinguish?
• 1:10:37
  Oh, and also, they work great when it's really dark.
• 1:10:42
  But when you throw in a fire, it's just going to white them out.
• 1:10:45
  So you're not going to be able to distinguish between the fire line and what's on the ground.
• 1:10:49
  And you've got cultural lighting and you've got, you know, you've got lights
• 1:10:53
  coming off of the fire trucks.
• 1:10:55
  And they specifically pick up heat, infrared. Yes, they do. It just blooms everything out.
• 1:11:04
  I'll never forget when Big Air Force came to us and said, hey,
• 1:11:07
  we want you guys to fly on, do firefighting on MBGs. You first.
• 1:11:13
  I wonder who they're going to get to do that. Because I'm not doing it.
• 1:11:17
  You guys first. You do it. Come back, tell us how it works, then we'll do it.
• 1:11:20
  That is really a moronic question. That is somebody that has no clue. No.
• 1:11:27
  That's amazing. It's an honor question. Yeah. Right?
• 1:11:31
  Yeah. Exactly. So, all right. Well, we should land this plane.
• 1:11:36
  Yeah, we should. And so thank you again, Double L, for your service.
• 1:11:41
  Oh, absolutely, guys. Thank you for yours. And I'll send you a video.
• 1:11:46
  It's around here somewhere.
• 1:11:48
  But I'll find it. We'll get it up with this episode. And we.
• 1:11:53
  That was a lot of good information.
• 1:11:54
  It really was. And someone. I don't know who came up with the idea about doing
• 1:11:59
  this. But in this particular time.
• 1:12:02
  Some of the worst fires in the history of California going on right now.
• 1:12:05
  And when and where we've taken a lighthearted approach at it.
• 1:12:08
  It isn't because we think this is a lighthearted subject at all.
• 1:12:12
  We're a couple crayon eating Marines.
• 1:12:15
  And we like to yuck it up and laugh. We're not yucking it up and laughing,
• 1:12:18
  though, at the utter devastation that people are enduring out there right now.
• 1:12:23
  Our thoughts and prayers are with everyone who has lost so much and facing literally
• 1:12:30
  starting over with the clothes on their backs.
• 1:12:33
  I can't imagine. Yeah, I have my opinions about how some of that should have
• 1:12:38
  been managed in the first place.
• 1:12:39
  But, you know, you can find those online anywhere you go. Right.
• 1:12:45
  I do know that the minute there's a fire, you probably have most of the firefighting
• 1:12:52
  crews, pilots and loadmasters, calling the base saying, have we been activated? I'm ready to go.
• 1:12:57
  So there is no shortage of volunteerism when it comes to this kind of thing,
• 1:13:02
  especially when you're talking about your backyard. I mean, from Point Magoo
• 1:13:05
  to Palisades, I've never measured it, but it can't be more than 15 or 20 miles as the crow flies.
• 1:13:11
  Oh, wow, that's fast. It's pretty quick. Yeah. That's fast.
• 1:13:16
  Hey, yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'd ask Sticks to see if he could find a Red
• 1:13:22
  Cross donation URL, and we'll put that up with our thing as well if you want
• 1:13:27
  to help out people in SoCal.
• 1:13:30
  I know there's a couple different ones, but.
• 1:13:34
  Go ahead, Vic. On a lighter note, I like the red ones. Crayons.
• 1:13:40
  Because they taste like cherries. I like grape purple.
• 1:13:46
  More of a black pen guy so I can sign my pay voucher. There you go. You Air Force guys.
• 1:13:53
  You know, Double L is a Marine.
• 1:13:56
  He hides that well. But, you know, he started out as a Marine.
• 1:13:59
  And I have it on good authority.
• 1:14:01
  Actually, I've seen a picture of him in his dress blues. quite striking,
• 1:14:05
  young man, back then. Yes, not like what you can see today.
• 1:14:09
  Oh, no. Slow down.
• 1:14:13
  You've seasoned. Let's just say you're seasoned now. Yes. Okay.
• 1:14:19
  Like a pot roast. There you go. All right.
• 1:14:24
  Sticks has come up with a URL, secure.projecthope.org. secure.projecthope.org.
• 1:14:32
  Thanks for finding that, Sticks. would deeply appreciate it.
• 1:14:35
  I don't think we're going to yuck it up much here on the outro,
• 1:14:37
  but we do want to say thanks so much to Dave Hamilton and backbeatmedia.com
• 1:14:43
  for helping us out with getting this show up and running.
• 1:14:46
  Also, thank you to Sticks, Tobago.
• 1:14:52
  If you can give us a rating, sothereiwas.us slash rate would be most helpful.
• 1:14:58
  If you want to write to us, Sticks at sotheriwas.us. He can answer all your
• 1:15:02
  questions if you want to reach out to figure me.
• 1:15:07
  Yeah, if you want an intelligent answer. But if you want to reach out to figure
• 1:15:10
  me, it's repeat at sotheriwas.us, R-E-P-E-T-E, or fig at sotheriwas.us.
• 1:15:16
  You can also reach bagoversticks, same URL.
• 1:15:20
  Got the merch store, sotheriwas.us slash merch. Get that bikini.
• 1:15:26
  Get that shot glass. get a coffee mug some shirts.
• 1:15:33
  And thank you to all the veterans for their service, particularly those out
• 1:15:38
  there on the front lines right now fighting those fires. Appreciate all you do.
• 1:15:43
  And then finally the last two. Oh, we forgot BDSAviationPhotography.com.
• 1:15:49
  Badass is here with us listening today.
• 1:15:51
  Much appreciated. Thanks, Badass. Yeah. Thanks for giving us those awesome pictures.
• 1:15:57
  Amazing shots. That you have bajillions of. Right. They're all awesome. Good stuff.
• 1:16:01
  Yeah. And then, of course, yes, the two Air Force pilots that make the Air Force sound good. Right.
• 1:16:09
  Fantastic stuff. All right, everybody. A little bit more of a serious show this week.
• 1:16:14
  We appreciate Double L coming on with us and talking about this horrible,
• 1:16:19
  horrible stuff, but the cool stuff that people are doing to get through this situation.
• 1:16:26
  In the meantime, until next week, stay safe and check six.
• 1:16:32
  Music.
• 1:16:39
  There I was Crossing the pond And you could say That I wasn't exactly fond Of
• 1:16:46
  all the shit I was wearing On that day,
• 1:16:50
  Now an F-16 Is cramped enough But it's even worse With all that stuff Supposed
• 1:16:56
  to save your life But we knew There was no way Because when you're going down
• 1:17:03
  the North Atlantic, man, it's over,
• 1:17:07
  It's what?
• 1:17:09
  Yes, he said it's over Over Where are you talking about? Spoken,
• 1:17:16
  And we're out Woo!