Test of Fire for Aging Aircraft

As a wildfire raged below in the Cajon Pass, Tanker 152 swooped low and dropped a load of orange fire retardant, wrapping up another mission for the aircraft that first flew during World War II.

The plane, a piston-powered DC-4, is part of the nation’s motley armada of air tankers, built during the Roosevelt, Truman and Eisenhower administrations. This fleet of ragtag planes and their bushwhacking pilots form the final line of defense against what may be the worst onslaught of wildfires to scorch the Western states in recent memory.

The planes are unlike anything else used for public safety, a quirk of a Depression-era law that has fueled a growing controversy over their safety and effectiveness. As a result of the law, even when newer air tankers are available, the older planes have to be deployed first.

Tanker 152 rolled out of the Douglas Aircraft Co. plant in Long Beach in 1945 and later saw service during the Berlin airlift in 1948. It was in an Air Force museum by 1978 but was auctioned off and ended up being used by a marijuana smuggler. After the Justice Department seized the plane, it was acquired by an air tanker operator in Arizona.

“It’s like stepping back in time,” said Ken Bavaro, a 31-year veteran of the U.S. Forest Service, who as a ramp manager was directing the aircraft to a refueling area at a San Bernardino airport last month.

There are more than 100 such aircraft, mostly flown by private operators, under government contract fighting wildfires across the West. For about four months each year, these planes go from fire to fire, landing at makeshift airfields to reload with retardant during the course of performing a dozen or more drops a day.

On Friday, the day after the crash of an air tanker that killed its two-man crew, the Forest Service grounded for one day all 42 of the heavy air tankers it manages.

The ill-fated plane, a PB4Y-2 Privateer, was made by the former Consolidated Aircraft Corp. in San Diego and used as a patrol bomber by the Navy in World War II. It apparently broke apart in midair while making a retardant drop in Colorado. It was one of six Privateers still operating.

Last month, a 45-year-old C-130A went down when its wings tore off during a retardant drop in the Eastern Sierra. The accident, which killed three crew members, remains under investigation. About one tanker crashes every year, making the missions among the more dangerous in aviation. Since 1958, 152 crew members aboard airplanes or helicopters have been killed while fighting fires.

Pilots and industry officials say these aircraft are safe and represent the most cost-effective way to fight forest and brush fires. Cost savings are crucial, they say, particularly this year when spending on firefighting is expected to top $1 billion, or about double the usual outlay. Spending on aircraft operations typically represents about a quarter of the budget for fighting wildfires.

“The crews are responsive and cost effective and their aircraft are well maintained and safe,” said William R. Broadwell, director of the Aerial Firefighting Industry Assn., which represents about 40 operators. “Nothing can compete with the existing commercial air tanker fleet in either effectiveness or cost.”

Still, the age of the aircraft and how they are used have become contentious issues among firefighters, pilots and politicians, some of whom are calling for shuttering what they say is an outdated system. The U.S. is unique in its dependence on commercial operators for aerial firefighting, a legacy of Depression-era efforts to support private business.

For now, with so many wildfires raging this year, some airfields are drawing classic-aircraft buffs, who come to see firsthand aviation history coming back to life.

Some of the aircraft still have gun turrets; others have cockpits with cracked wooden flooring. The cabins in most are not pressurized, and gauges are still analog. It’s no wonder, then, that air tanker pilots like to call them fire bombers instead.

The aircraft are used to drop retardant--a slushy chemical the consistency of mud--in advance of a fire, whereas helicopters usually drop water directly on the flames.

For a few days last month, San Bernardino International Airport resembled a World War II military operation as half a dozen air tankers--piston engines rumbling and coughing black smoke--lined up on a tarmac while waiting to take off. Another squadron of planes descended toward the airport to reload fire retardants. They were fighting a blaze that was sweeping through the Cajon Pass at the east end of the nearby San Gabriel Mountains.

“In some ways it’s a flying museum. You get to see some classics,” Bavaro said as he directed a P-2 Neptune to a “mud pit” where it would be reloaded with retardant. In its past life, the Korean War-era aircraft was used by the Navy to patrol and drop torpedoes on submarines.

Exactly how many such aircraft are being used today to fight forest fires is unclear because each state may contract for a few. Others are operated by local fire agencies.

But the bulk--71 air tankers--are operated by private companies under federal government contracts. The California Department of Forestry, the state agency with the nation’s largest nonfederal fleet, operates 23 small air tankers, all of them former Navy anti-submarine aircraft built in the 1950s.

The C-130A air tanker that crashed last month was one of the newer air tankers in operation despite being manufactured in 1957. The plane was initially used as an Air Force cargo plane before being converted into a gunship during the Vietnam War. It eventually was converted into a fire bomber by a private operator in Wyo- ming.

To be sure, new technologies are under development, including equipment to spray retardants more efficiently. But for the foreseeable future, the bulk of the aerial firefighting missions will be carried out by aircraft older than their pilots, federal and state officials said.

Change in Policy Pushed

With forest fires promising to ravage and threaten national landmarks, private homes and businesses at an unprecedented rate this year, critics of the program have begun calling for the federal government to rethink how it uses aircraft to fight fires. As of Thursday, the National Interagency Fire Center had registered 49,363 fires this year. They destroyed 3.5 million acres, an area twice the size of Delaware.

At the core of the debate is an arcane 1932 law that restricts activating federal personnel and resources until all commercially available firefighting aircraft have been used up.

To keep costs down, private operators pick up aircraft that are often discarded by the military services.

“The current system is broken, and the nation can no longer afford what has become an expensive, outdated sop to commercialism,” Aviation Week & Space Technology, an influential industry magazine, said in an unusually critical editorial last week. “The time has come to throw away the ... statutes.”

Some veteran firefighting pilots say they have heard the debate before and that it often ebbs and grows depending on the fire season or when an air tanker crashes.

The operators and their pilots insist that the aircraft are safe and efficient. They note, for instance, that the planes have less flight time on them than most passenger jets and do not undergo the same grueling schedule.

“Age is not an issue,” said Pat Norbury, a Forest Service pilot who manages the program that trains pilots for the agency.

“It’s not like an airliner that’s got to fly six legs a day, day after day, year after year. They are well maintained by the operators. As dramatic as it looks, most of the time, you are not flying the aircraft on the edge of its performance.”

Tom Rader, a Nevada pilot who flies Tanker 07, a P-2 Neptune that first flew in 1953, said most of the air tankers have 5,000 to 20,000 hours of flight time. By comparison, Boeing 727 jetliners built in the 1960s have flown more than 60,000 hours, he said.

“People always say, ‘Wow, it was built in 1953,’ but it doesn’t have that many hours on it,” said Rader, who has been an air tanker pilot for 17 years. “The Navy took really good care of them.”

Still, calls for modernizing the fleet have been growing, and some members of Congress have pushed local initiatives to help bolster federal programs.

Last month, the California Air National Guard’s 146th Airlift Wing in Ventura County, which is one of only four federal government units designated to help fight wildfires, received the first newly manufactured aircraft in its 80-year history.

Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) secured $148.4 million in federal funding last year to acquire the two new C-130J Hercules cargo planes that would be equipped to drop retardants on wildfires.

But the 146th, which uses the most powerful firefighting equipment available, can be deployed only as a last resort because of the 1932 law. Irked lawmakers introduced legislation in Congress this week to permit the Forest Service to tap military aircraft without first exhausting the supply of commercial aircraft.

The Channel Islands Air National Guard Station near Point Mugu also will be the home to the next generation of firefighting equipment, which can dispense 4,000 gallons of retardant within five seconds and with more accuracy. It’s one of the few efforts to upgrade aerial firefighting capabilities in recent years.

Unlike current systems, which basically dump retardant from a tank and rely on the vagaries of wind conditions for their accuracy, the new system propels the retardant through a high-pressure valve, releasing it much like a giant can of aerosol spray. Its designers, Aero Union in Chico, said the system could double the effectiveness of dropping retardants.

The new system will not change the basics of carefully choreographed fire bombing, as it is called.

Whereas television broadcasts often show a single airplane making a drop, the aerial operation may involve a dozen or more aircraft and resemble the precision of a military operation.

In addition to air tankers, which range from C-130A cargo planes that drop 3,000 gallons of retardant to smaller S-2A Trackers carrying 800 gallons, the operation includes two other aircraft that help guide the air tankers.

Coordinating Operations

A supervisor in a so-called air attack plane circles high above the fire, coordinating operations and overseeing the dropping of retardant.

Meanwhile, a lead plane guides the air tankers through their runs over the fire, typically about 150 feet above the ground. It then circles back to guide the drop of the next tanker.

A handful of states, including California, have their own small fleets that are supplanted by aircraft owned by private operators under contract with the federal agencies.

The California Department of Forestry operates 23 Grumman S-2T and S-2A air tankers, nine UH-1H Super Huey helicopters and 13 OV-10A Broncos.

They can be deployed to virtually any forest fire in the state. In 1998, the agency converted a portion of San Bernardino Airport, formerly Norton Air Force Base, into an air tanker facility.

Last month, the usually empty base began to bustle as a dozen air tankers--two DC-4s, a C-130A, a P-2 Neptune and eight S-2 Trackers--flew in from their home bases to join in the fight against the Cajon Pass fire.

At the height of the firefighting effort, each plane landed, took on a new load of retardant and then took off, at least a dozen times. Each flight lasted about 40 minutes, with the crews getting only 10-minute breaks on the ground between missions.

“We operate the most expensive public safety equipment in the world in one of the more hazardous environments,” said Michael Venable, an air tanker pilot who had made about 15 drops that day.