 For the eighth time in nine seasons communications has been the leading contributing factor in safe net submissions The majority of submissions deal with communications equipment the remainder being personal communications issues Think about the unique communication challenges we face. Let's start with personalities all different On your crew you get to know people like family while on an incident you may work with total strangers Each person presents a different communication challenge, and that's just beginning Let's add some stress confusion and possibly a malfunctioning radio system Most of the time we can work through the problem, but when we can't the outcome can be very bad With aviation representing a huge component on most incidents establishing effective communications is more critical than ever Consider the challenge. You've probably never met the person you're talking to they have a totally different view of the incident And in some cases have never fought fire on the ground However, they still need an incident briefing an appropriate tactical assignment an air attack primarily I manage incident airspace and incident air traffic and also I work with the firefighters on the ground in an effort to meet their objectives And they're attack has several capabilities and limitations as well an air attack can size up a fire An air attack can find routes into the incident for folks on the ground An air attack can fly out way in front of the incident and look for values at risk Help the incident commander develop a tactical plan establish priorities There are some limitations with that the main one is fuel and and then weather an air attack typically Can stay over fire for about three hours Also with weather if there are if there are low clouds or thunderstorms in the area Then an air attack is going to have to go in and sit down and wait for better weather Air attack is not a lookout. I would never ask air attack to be a lookout They cannot stay over one particular location for an uncertain amount of time However, an air attack can Patrol your section of line look for spot fires see a fires hooking engines and gather any intelligence you need But but never should air attack be considered a lookout Air attack can serve as a relay for ground resources in a couple of different ways If the incident commander can't talk to dispatch on a repeater frequency They can't hit the repeater if they're down in a hole or something air attack and relay any information back to dispatch that way Also if crews can't talk to one another on tactical because of terrain or something is obscuring that radio transmission Then we can just relay information between crews and we're happy to do that as an initial attack I see when you get out there on your incident and you have One two aircraft out there You're fine working with them But if you get more than three aircraft or three or more aircraft on that incident Order an air attack or a lead plane if you're just working with their tankers That that aircraft can do so much more for you than just directing the incident airspace and reducing your span of control in that regard When air tankers are in final approach whether it be a seat or a heavy air tanker They're flying Low a seat 60 feet and a heavy air tanker about 150 feet and they're flying pretty slow Seats are going to drop it right about a hundred miles an hour and then a heavy air tanker at about 120 and they're also very heavy my retardant weighs about 9.2 pounds per gallon so a 3,000 gallon tanker is 27,000 pounds So when those airplanes are coming in on final, it's very important that the line is clear Because when that return becomes out of the airplane, it's a mass of 27,000 pounds going a hundred miles an hour When an air tax on scene They can see quite a quite a ways away on any thunderstorms that are building on it or any weather that that may be moving in Many times I've spotted lightning in the distance like ground crews know thunderstorms are coming in We've either disengaged or changed our tactics The prerequisite to be an air tactical group supervisor is either division supervisor or incident commander type 3 essentially there are three Main fixed wing aerial supervisions the first one is the air tactical group supervisor Who orbits the fire at about 2,500 feet above ground level and manages the incident airspace and coordinates? Priorities with the folks on the ground and it's important to know that when they're on their way to an incident They may be referred to as air attack 5 5 or air attack 3 1 which refers to the tail number of the aircraft Once that air attack gets on an incident they become the air attack for the incident and will assume a name such as Snake Falls air attack or Fall Creek air attack something of that nature if there are enough air tankers or helicopters on the fire you're going to have a lead plane which works for the air attack and The purpose of the lead plane is to direct air tanker operations Lead planes are a little different that they're always known as lead 4 9 for example on The other side of that is the helicopter coordinator or helco and the lead in the helco can be considered Airborne task force leaders helco does helicopters the lead works with the air tankers The third type of fixed wing aerial supervision is the aerial supervision module or ASM Aerial supervision modules are always preceded with a B of Bravo and then the lead plane number So for example Bravo 7 you know You're getting an ASM and then the lead plane pilot is lead 0 7 and what the ASM is is a combination of the lead plane and The air attack and those two individuals are in the same aircraft at performing a dual-role mission They do all the air attack stuff with the folks on the ground and they also coordinate air tanker operations It's a very efficient way to go about our business Typically an air attack aircraft will have two to three AM radios and two to three FM radios in a three AM radio Configuration we're talking to air traffic control if we're in the proximity of airports We're talking to helicopters on a designated rotor wing victor frequency And we're also talking to air tankers on the designated fixed wing frequency on the FM side if we've got three FM's We're talking to dispatch on one FM We're talking to folks on the ground on a designated air-to-ground frequency and then on our third FM We'd be monitoring command on large fires or perhaps a tactical frequency on smaller fires It's pretty hard to keep track of who's talking to us because of all the radios that are going off with with up to six Radios it can be a lot of noise in your headset So once we're on an incident I'll just have my air-to-ground volume tweaked up a little bit so I can always talk to the folks on an air-to-ground But but it's important that they realize that if I'm talking to an air tanker or dispatch on another frequency Then I may not hear them calling so the best thing to do is try again If you still don't get us wait for a few minutes and call us back Realizing that we have all those radios up there on the airplane and we're talking to somebody else and we're busy We'd like you to start here Initial contact we're right when we arrive on scene is typically somewhat chaotic. There's a lot going on It's an emerging incident The ground crews are busy trying to figure out how to anchor into the fire and get established figure out priorities Lot of traffic between dispatch, so it's pretty hard to get a word in edge-wise on the radio In my opinion the chaos is something to expect and you can learn to live with but you can also manage it You know it's coming if you know aerial resources are en route to your incident be prepared for them Have that have somebody up on that air-to-ground frequency and have a plan for those guys once they get there So we're not wasting a lot of time orbiting the incident when we could be working for you One of the biggest pitfalls is conflicting priorities on large fires You may have three or four critical divisions and everybody wants helicopters everybody wants air tankers But we can only do so much we have limited Capability in that regard so it's important for the divisions to get with ops and figure out Which is truly the top priority so we can focus on that if you have multiple air resources And no air attack on your incident because that resource has been diverted to another start Think about setting some of them down It's it's not safe to have all those aircraft in that airspace if you have two helicopters two seats and a heavy air tanker coming in Make sure you've got aerial supervision on order whether it be a lead air attack or an ASM When you know those aircraft are inbound it's time to implement your plan for talking to them whether it be designating Someone to be the air contact or something like that just be ready to talk to them and have that frequency being monitored Invariably you get up on on scene on a fire and all hell is breaking loose. There's chaos everywhere dispatch is cranking You're busy trying to do a size-up and whatnot in the meantime You've got tankers helicopters and aerial supervision orbiting your fire with nobody to talk to you and nothing to do When aerial supervision arrives on scene we expect a briefing from the ground contact Whether it be an IC or division supervisor and that the briefing should consist of what the antenna is What your objectives are for the incident what your priorities are for the aircraft? It's keep in mind It's important to have your main plan and a backup plan because if our primary target gets obscured with smoke Then we still have something we can go do When firefighters are communicating directly with helicopters and they're trying to get them directed into a drop or into a landing spot The first thing they need to do is establish visual contact with the helicopter Once they do that give them a quick mirror flash and say I'm at your 12 o'clock at three miles If they get the flash the helicopter pilot will come back. I've got your flash I'm on my way in and then from there if you're directing a bucket drop Have a panel on the ground or be waving a fusee is some sort of visual reference on the ground that that Helicopter can verify as the target Once the helicopter gets the target get out of the way have make the drop and then you can give them Feedback from there on the next drop The best way to describe a Target to aerial supervision is to use the fire anatomy for example heel head left flank right flank left shoulder right shoulder Try to avoid using compass directions since we're flying either a left hand or a right hand pattern our compass is constantly rotating So the best way is to say anchor in at the heel and work up the left flank as opposed to saying Work up from the southeast corner to the northwest corner When your tankers arrive on scene they may or may not have a lead planer in any aerial supervision with them So they will be talking directly to you if their initial attack rated before an air tanker is going to come in and drop for you They're going to need to know the location They're going to need to know hazards the coverage level of retardant You want them to use and whether or not the line is going to be clear for them to drop If the target description to the air tanker is unclear One thing you can do is just have them fly a dry run over the target to make sure that you're both on the same page The pattern that tankers typically fly over fires is just like an air an airport traffic pattern It would be a left-hand pattern comprised of an upwind crosswind downwind base and final leg As a ground wheat resource you can do so many things for us because you're on the ground you can get temperature relative humidity and Wind information to the aerial supervision or to the tankers and helicopters working on your fire Wind is very important for air tankers and helicopters for two reasons One is the effectiveness of the bucket drops or the retardant once wind gets up to 20 miles an hour or so Retardant is not going to be very effective It's all going to drift away the other thing is the safety of the aircraft and that kind of wind There's going to be turbulence if we're working in canyons and over ridges. There's going to be mountain waves and rotors and It's going to be Detrimental effect of the aircraft to have them out there working in windy conditions Also as a ground resource, it's it's important to relay any information as to other hazards anything that would do Damage potentially to an aircraft whether it be snags that are really hard to see or ridge that is obscured in smoke Maybe a cell phone tower. That's really hard to see from the air any towers Power lines anything that would hurt an aircraft at all don't hesitate to give us a call let us know that they're there As you can tell from your personal experience and from viewing this module Aviation communication can be complex and has a lot of variables This next exercise is intended to give you more experience communicating with aviation resources and can be applied to all Situations you deal with while working on an incident