Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Hello, and welcome to the 33rd episode of Wildfire Matters, the podcast that covers all aspects of wildland fire management for the Bureau of Land Management, or blm. We talk with the people who manage and protect our public lands, many who have dedicated their lives to the profession. My name is Piper Brandt, former co host and now host of Wildfire Matters. Now that Carrie Bilbao is enjoying her retirement and hitting the slopes, Today we're interviewing two BLM pilots. Bob McCormick, he's a smokejumper instructor pilot, and Lisa Allen, she's an air tactical pilot. And they're going to talk with us about what it's like to fly aircraft for the blm, how they train to do this job, their past experiences, and how that has led them to where they are today. Welcome, Bob and Lisa.
[00:00:58] Speaker C: Thanks for having me.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Thanks for coming on. So, first off, can you tell us a little bit more about yourselves and, like, what led you to become pilot for the blm? And Bob, we can start with you first.
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Well, what got me started was my first plane ride. I was 13 years old, and it was an immediate attraction. Three days out of high school, I started training for my private pilot's license and got that before I went into the military. In the military, I was in the Navy, not flying. But I got out of aviation, got back into it just before my 39th birthday and decided that my next career was going to be aviation. At that time, I was still BLM, working with the ROZ program in remote weather. And so I gave myself a target that I'd be a professional pilot before I was 50.
First professional job, was 47 years old flying skydivers. Did a lot of time building with flying club, skydiving operations, and a host of other jobs around the Boise airport. Did a mentor program at the Forest Service, eventually accepted a job with the Forest Service flying infrared. Was with them for about five, five years. Left the federal government for three years and in 2010, came back to work for the Bureau flying in Alaska. And I flew up there for 12 seasons.
There was a job announcement to fly skydivers or correction smokejumpers and do some instructing. So it was something that I thought that would sound like a lot of fun and a new challenge. So I was fortunate enough to get selected for the job and have been doing that for about four years now. And it's just a tremendous opportunity, and I love what I do.
[00:02:57] Speaker B: Awesome. Yeah. Well, we're really happy that you came here.
[00:03:01] Speaker A: Well, thanks.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah. And, Lisa, how about you?
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Ooh. See, unlike Bob, I did not grow up wanting to be a pilot. I grew up wanting to be a veterinarian. And I had a high school volleyball coach that also worked for the Forest Service. And she said, hey, go work fire in the summertime. That'll help pay for college. And so I got into fire on an engine crew. And then I heard about hotshots, and I went to be a hotshot crew up in Alaska. And at that point, I realized I didn't want to be a veterinarian anymore. And wildland fire was what I really wanted to do with my life. And while I was up in Alaska, I saw the smokejumpers, and I'm like, that's what I want to do, because I have a really wicked independent streak. And I love just the nature of the smokejumper mission. And so I became a smokejumper. My rookied here in Boise and absolutely loved smokejumping. And when all this was going on, I had the opportunity to meet people that were pilots and said, hey, come do a Discovery flight. So I did, while I was still going to college and liked it and got my private pilot's license just for fun. It wasn't intended to be a career ever. And then I got farther into my smokejumping career and realized I didn't want to be the old, better smokejumper that didn't have a way to get out of smoke jumping, that was just stuck at the base and making life miserable for everybody else around him.
And I saw another smokejumper become a lead plane pilot. And I said, that's what I want to do. And Bob here, when I was up in Alaska jumping any opportunity that he had that he needed a Loadmaster or somebody to ride along with him, he would take me along and started, like, introducing me to the BLM pilot program and helping me to get flight time. And during the winter times, I'd go back and get all of the rest of my ratings that were needed. And the BLM has this amazing pilot development program where you have basic. Not basic, advanced level, fire qualifications division, soup, IC3, and a minimum amount of flight time and pilot ratings. And they take that and they hire you and help you develop you as a lead plane pilot. And that's what I did. And so that's kind of in my path. Oh, the program.
[00:05:12] Speaker B: That's really cool. I didn't know that you were a smoke jumper in the past before.
[00:05:16] Speaker C: That's.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: That's awesome. And Mike Francis, he's another BLM pilot. He was Unable to join us today. But he was also a smokejumper too. Did you, did you ever cross paths before he became a pilot for the blm?
[00:05:30] Speaker C: And ifsi I did not cross paths with Mike. I had heard of him because he was a Boise smokejumper while I was a Alaska smokejumper. And it just didn't ever happen that we crossed paths. But I kept hearing about this guy.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it seems like such a small world, especially with pilots in the BLM or federal government. Anyway.
[00:05:49] Speaker C: And then when we were able to hire him, it was like, okay, cool. And he's turned out to be an amazing asset.
[00:05:53] Speaker B: Oh yeah.
[00:05:54] Speaker C: To the blm.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah, me too. But yeah, that'll lead into our next question. So there aren't many pilot positions within the BLM or even within fire programs of the other agencies. So it's kind of a really unique job. So do you want to go over what your duties are? Lisa, we could start with you because you do a little different stuff than Bob.
[00:06:17] Speaker C: So my job title is lead plane pilot, air tactical pilot. So I fly a King Air 200 over wildland fires, managing the fire traffic area, which is the airspace and a communications protocol that we use over wildland fires to coordinate all the aircraft into the airspace. And in that mission I'm managing the airspace. And then I find out between myself and what I call our air tactical supervisor who's sitting in the right seat of the aircraft. We talk to the people on the ground, we talk to the air attack, find out what they want from the retard and the water carrying aircraft, and then we take that objective and take our aircraft and meet that objective. So in that I live within 1,000ft above the ground, down to 60ft above the ground, which is the lowest drop height for our single engine air tankers for about three to four hours at a time, coordinating with the ground and making runs, finding the headings for the drops, the altitudes, finding any ridge crossing heights, drift correction hazards that are out there. And then when a tanker checks in, I go out and join up with the tanker, come in, give them a show me or a target description, and then rejoin up and lead them on the drop. Okay, so we basically, basically all that is, is we find that we figure out what the ground wants with the resources and then we communicate that to the tankers, okay? So that we have a plan when they get on on on scene, so they get in on the scene safely, effectively and efficiently so that they can spend the time going back and getting us another gotcha.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: And I imagine it helps them be more accurate in their drops too.
[00:07:51] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:07:52] Speaker C: Because we're on scene, we can see what the smoke is doing or the wind is doing, how that's going to affect. And we can give them a very solid target description because we can use our aircraft for the target description and a physical word description as well.
[00:08:05] Speaker B: Gotcha. Okay, very cool. And Bob, tell us a little bit more about your duties.
[00:08:12] Speaker A: Well, my duties are somewhat twofold. In addition to being a flight instructor, not only for a smokejumper program, but I also fly a different aircraft, the Pilatus PC 12.
And part of that training entails just introducing people to turbine powered aircraft and IFR instrument flight rule operations. And additionally I'm a fully carted qualified smokejumper pilot. So, you know, we train on the mission, a lot of training, low level training. We operate down to 200ft, not 60. That's still a pretty good bird's eye view.
[00:08:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: So you know, we do very similar type of size ups, scenario based type mission training. And you know, once we get the call, if you can imagine, instead of being at the firehouse at Boise Fire Department, we're somewhere typically in the Great Basin. Could be Grand Junction, could be Ely, it could be anywhere. And then when we get the fire call, we get a coordinate and so we load up, get the coordinate in the aircraft and flight of the fire, the smoke. And I work very closely with the spotter. That individual, he or she is a fully qualified smokejumper that has been additionally trained on spotting operations, looking similar things, wind drift, a safe place to put the jumpers. And then we go into what we call jump ops where we will do a low pass 200ft to where the jumper in charge in the back of the aircraft also sees where the spot or tentative jump spot is. Then we go up to streamer height 1500ft above the ground and we drop set of streamers, sometimes multiple times just to read the wind, wind drift, speed, things like that. Then the 3,000ft AGL where we do jumpers out the door. And then once the jumpers are out the door, depending upon the size of the smoke or the fire, it could be the full load of eight smoke jumpers in the case of the Twin Otter. Or it could just be two jumpers or somewhere in between. Once they're safely on the ground, we go into paracargo operations where I'll make the pass at 200ft AGL to kick out the cargo to the jump spot. And they don't like it if we put it in the trees. So accuracy on your cargo runs is real important.
But it's a pretty amazing job. Very satisfying.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yeah. And you're red carded in several aircraft. Right. So that means you're qualified, fully trained to fly these aircraft. Which aircraft do you want to list? Can you list the aircraft that you.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Qualified in the federal government for the BLM? The Pilatus PC12 and the Twin Otter. And the Pilatus PC12, I flew that in Alaska. And we flew several different types of missions. Carted air attack pilot. We would do logistics flights, we would do crew movement flights, fire reconnaissance detection flights. In the springtime, we would have a request from resource management to do survey flights along the Yukon river. Looking at the breakup, ice breakup. And then some of the other non fire type of missions I've done in that airplane is high altitude search and rescue at 20,000ft around Denali and then also VIP or senior executive service flights, fact finding flights, things like that. So it's one of the cool things about that job was every day was different. So the smoke jumping, you know, fire's been in my blood for many, many years, even before aviation. And it's. You can't get rid of it.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: Well, there's the NOAA mission. I don't know.
[00:12:16] Speaker A: Yeah, the NOAA mission.
[00:12:17] Speaker C: That's where I flew with Bob quite a bit.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: I did a lot of training when we flew for noaa. We were doing airborne geodetic survey work and quite a few lead plane and retired lead plane pilots got their initial training with me. So anytime I flew with anybody, and I think Lisa can attest to this, that my only rule was to pay it forward because we've got to get that next generation pilot on board. And everybody's just holding true to their word on that. And it's, it's pretty exciting to see that.
[00:12:49] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. And that's another part of your duties is you help train the incoming pilots. That.
[00:12:56] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:12:56] Speaker B: But younger than you, like Mike, I. I flew with you guys while he was training to get carded in the PC12.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:13:04] Speaker B: Yeah. Lisa, do you do any kind of instructing or do you. You do.
[00:13:08] Speaker C: I do. Yep. I am a qualified lead plane instructor.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: So last year I flew with a forest service trainee on fires for about a month. And then this year we've hired two additional lead plane trainees and I'll be flying with them at different given times this summer, instructing them in the. Not only just the King Air itself, but also in the lead Plane mission.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: Very cool. So how many aircraft does the BLM own here at Nifcy?
[00:13:38] Speaker C: 3. 3.
[00:13:39] Speaker B: 3.
[00:13:40] Speaker C: Yeah. So that we own the Twin Otter.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: Twin Otter, The Pilatus.
[00:13:44] Speaker C: Oh, it's five. It's five aircraft. The Kodiak, Kodiak. And then we own two King Airs. Oh, I forgot our two King Airs, the ones that we fly.
[00:13:51] Speaker B: Yeah, those are important too.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Cool. So do you want to explain the differences between contracted pilots and BLM employees like you guys? Because it's hard to get all of the fire assignments covered with just BLM pilots. Right. So do you want to talk a little bit about what contractors do versus what you guys do?
[00:14:15] Speaker C: So from a lead plane perspective, the blm, we have no contract leadplane pilots.
[00:14:19] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:14:20] Speaker C: The Forest Service has contracted plane pilots. And to my knowledge, the big difference is that as BLM agency pilots, we are career seasonal. We work up to 11 and a half months a year. We have to take the mandatory two weeks off. And so that enables us to have other duties. Like, I do a ton of teaching at the National Aerial Firefighting Academy, NAFA at the National Air Attack Academy, at mafs, trainings at Air Attack, refresher trainings at Lead plane initial Training. So I do a ton of instruction, and that's a lot of my concurrent duties. We've got another pilot that does our developer that runs our development program. So is they're responsible for getting these new pilots that are mostly from within the agency, like Mike Francis, for example. And we've got a handful of other ones guiding them and running the program for that. And we have another pilot that is responsible for maintenance of our aircraft. And so that's what we're getting with the BLM agency employee versus the contract lead plane pilots. As far as I know, they're. They're 90 days of work, no concurrent duties. The BLM or the government? Not the BLM. The Forest Service is getting nothing else out of them unless it's a separate contract.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: Okay, gotcha.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Sure. The similar. On the Smokejumper side of the house, we have six, I believe, six smokejumper aircraft contracted outside four in Alaska, typically two in the lower 48. And those pilots, similar, they have different contracts, some 60 days, some up to 120 day. Their mission is identical to ours. They get carded. When I say carded annually, we have to go through a mission check. Right. In our case with Lisa and myself through Office of Aviation Services, it's part of the Department of Interior. And so the same holds true for the contract Pilots, they have to get carted and qualified and pass a mission check. Right. In addition to that, every six months we do an instrument proficiency check. Meaning for example, when we flew down to Ogden, we were in some weather. I have to be qualified and current to fly in the clouds to do that type of flying.
I'm pretty, pretty sure that some of the smoke jumper and tanker folks, they're also instrument qualified. The check rides are very focused on the mission. Different types of scenarios of, you know, picking out a spot and cargo drops. Simulated could be simulated cargo drops, things like that. In fact, I'm going to be a designated bureau inspector pilot for OAS for smokejumper mission checkrides in the near future. So potentially I'll be doing the checkride or the checkride inspections for some of our contracted pilots. So that's another challenge I think is going to be kind of a cool opportunity.
[00:17:22] Speaker B: Absolutely, yeah. Because you, you're so familiar with the aircraft. I'm sure that helps a ton when you're doing inspections.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: Well, yeah, and they have some different aircraft, but I'm very familiar with the mission.
[00:17:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:17:35] Speaker A: So I'm more of an observer in those aircraft. You know, I won't be operating or manipulating any flight controls. Most of those aircraft are crewed by two pilots, a pilot and a non flying pilot or a co pilot. One of the aircraft that's on contract again is single pilot, but again I'll be observing his interaction with the spotter and how he flies the aircraft and how, you know, are they maintaining altitude, maintaining certain airspeeds, you know, things like that that fall within the window or parameter, if you will, of the mission profile.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Okay.
So it's winter right now, so it's not, we're not heavy in fire season yet. So you are mostly just doing this kind of training and instructing into winter months. Right.
[00:18:22] Speaker C: Well, so I just came back from a combined training and mission trip where I spent 10 days in Southern California staffing a lead plane on standby for fire. So it was like it's. That was in at the beginning of this month. I left January 31st.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I heard you were down there.
[00:18:44] Speaker C: Yeah. So even though it may not be fire season here, it does tend to be fire season somewhere else. We're looking at more year round stuff. So yeah, I was in California for 10 days and then I went over to Arizona for actual arm training and this usually is our main training time. However, fire season's still going in Arizona.
[00:19:04] Speaker B: Yes, fire year.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: And one of our BLM lead plane pilots went out and flew a wildland fire. And while I was at the training, concurrently, I was on standby to go to fires as well.
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:19:19] Speaker C: Yeah. So it's. It just depends on where the need is. Yeah. It's raining here today in Boise.
[00:19:24] Speaker B: Right. There's not a need. Yeah.
[00:19:26] Speaker C: But then there may be a need elsewhere. But the general is. Yeah. February, Jan. I start my training season in January, and it usually goes all the way up until April.
[00:19:36] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:19:36] Speaker C: With all the different training that has to be done.
[00:19:38] Speaker B: Gotcha. And when do you do instructing typically? Is it concurrent with your.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: So some of it's concurrent with what I'm. We have a training program down in Arizona every year that has our lead plane refresher, our ASM aerial supervision module refresher. But then it also. We also have lead plane initial training and ASM initial training. And then there's an Air Attack Academy. And during the initial two initial trainings in the Air Attack Academy, that's when we're doing a lot of the instruction. But the bulk of our instruction is on fires.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:20:11] Speaker C: It's mission related.
Just on the job training. Thatcher, we're giving.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: Yeah. I feel like it's hard to replicate that exact scenario.
[00:20:19] Speaker C: It really is. And so we're very much at the whim of what that particular fire is for, what we can get done, training wise.
[00:20:25] Speaker B: Gotcha. Okay. And Bob, what about you?
[00:20:29] Speaker A: Very similar training currency depending upon the aircraft we're involved with phase maintenance and or annual maintenance inspections. Oversee that, coordinate that with our aircraft director of maintenance and the shop that is contracted to service the aircraft. So a lot of interaction with the different people and just, you know, staying abreast of that. I think when we were getting the Twin Otter repainted this winter, we made a couple of inspection flights down there. I think you were on a couple of those. And just to check the progress, make sure they were on track with what, you know, meeting our contract and progress, that sort of thing in the timeframe that we needed to work completed.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: Gotcha. Just to catch our audience up, I flew with Bob and Mike while they were checking on the Twin Otter getting painted in Ogden, Utah.
And when was the Twin Otter built again?
[00:21:30] Speaker A: It was built in 1974.
She's 51 years young now.
And, you know, maintenance is the key. Preventive maintenance, corrective maintenance. You take the Air Force B52 bomber as an example. That plane was built back in the 50s and it's still flying global missions.
[00:21:50] Speaker C: But they're managing that because they're constantly doing maintenance on New engines, new avionics inspections.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And corrosion was the big thing that they were checking on with the Twin Otter.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Yeah. It had been 20 years since that plane had been painted. So, you know, periodic maintenance includes periodic painting, you know, take the paint off that was completely stripped down and they can do a good surface corrosion analysis and inspection.
[00:22:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty incredible that they could fly that long if you just take care of them. So, yeah, it was super cool to see that. All right, so what is, what's the most challenging part of your jobs, would you say?
[00:22:33] Speaker C: Challenging in that, like, it's funny, I was actually trying to discuss, like, what, what does challenging mean like to me, like challenging. I love my job because it is.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: Because it is a challenge.
[00:22:41] Speaker C: It is a challenge. Like every single day is something new. But when I think about, like challenging in that more. What's like some issues you have or that, that aspect for me, which I don't mind it too bad. But it is a very time consuming, all consuming job in that from usually about April until October, I work 12 days on, two to three days off the majority of the summer. I may take a two week chunk off here or there or once every summer, but it's 12 days on. And in that 12 days, I could start out here and I could end up in Alaska. I could start out here and end up in Florida and I could go all. I've had a 12 day roll where I've slept in a different town every single night. And so it's really hard for predictability and getting anything done and having a life in the summertime, that, that's. I mean, I don't mind it because I thrive on that kind of variety. But it is a challenge, like to have no, like not be able to plan anything in the summertime and then all of a sudden in the wintertime when we hit November, December. I've got to get back into my life.
[00:23:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Like switch up the routine.
[00:23:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Try to get back into a routine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And most of the pilots that I've spoken to, it seems like this is an absolute passion. It kind of has to be. It seems like, like I just learned that you live next to an airstrip and that's. That's incredible. Yeah.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, I may not have grown up wanting to be a pilot, but now my life revolves around being a pilot.
[00:24:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:15] Speaker C: I mean, I own my own airplane, I'm building an airplane, I fly for a job.
[00:24:20] Speaker B: That's super cool.
[00:24:21] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. I guess from my perspective, you Know, you have different light challenges or, you know, first off, you have to like being a gypsy because somewhere, you know, Lisa said you're gone at the 12 and 2, or we've got some flexibility with the Smokejumper program and what we're leaning towards, the way we want to staff the aircraft. And it may just be 8 on and 4 off, you know, things like that. But you on the move, it's unpredictable. From an administrative perspective, trying to educate administrative people on why does your travel voucher, your travel authorization here to Ely, you've got a hotel receipt from Grand Junction and Rock Springs, Wyoming. So that's a bit of a challenge. But you know, all joking aside, besides that, you know, when you get the fire call, you know, you've got to do a pretty fast size up, you know, kind of the routine in the morning is not only look at, you know, your local forecast, if we're operating out of Cedar City, what's the weather like around Cedar City, but you look at one or two area forecasts because again, you could be similar to what Lisa's talking about. You could end up, you know, flying a fire up near Reno or Rock Springs, Wyoming or wherever. So weather can be a challenge in the fire environment. You know, getting up to a fire somewhere and then once you're on the scene, you know, a lot of fires can be in mountainous terrain and you just, you can't make really a determination before you go, unless it's just solid fog, you know, between point A and point B and just terrible weather that you don't go, but you go to go to where they ask you to go to. And you know, we've had times where the turbulence is so severe that once you drop below the canyon ridge and get down into a canyon, it's kind of a rodeo. You're holding on for eight seconds till you get out of that mess. So, you know, you just got to be aware of the weather challenge and then the jump spot challenge for us, you know, can we get the jumpers on the ground where we need to get those folks on the ground and then can we get the cargo in there and do it safely? That's the bottom line is, you know, utmost important is, you know, we don't want to do anything that's not going to get somebody back, you know, off that job.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: So yeah, so you just, I'm just trying to wrap my head around it. You just have to be ready to fly in any kind of situation, depending on where you get the call, basically.
[00:26:55] Speaker C: And I think so Much of it is also not only being ready and preparing yourself, but being willing to change the plan based off of the conditions you encounter. Because, yeah, we may take off out of here. And it's beautiful, sunny bluebird day. And the weather says it's gonna be beautiful, sunny bluebird day on our trip. And then all of a sudden there's afternoon thunderstorms that weren't predicted, or we get to a fire and they say, you've got the world coming to you. You got a whole bunch of single engine air tankers, you got large air tankers, you got the DC10, you got a whole bunch of helicopters, got smokejumpers ship coming. And then you get out there and they're like, I'm sorry, everything's been diverted to a higher priority fire. And all you get is one that one large air tanker that showed up on scene with you.
And you have to adapt and change to what's going on.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Yeah, seems you have to make those decisions so quick too, but that's very cool. All right, on the flip side, what is your favorite part of your job? And this could be favorite memory or anything in particular?
[00:27:55] Speaker A: Well, I guess for me is the mission is my favorite part of the job and the people I'm involved with that mission. I work with some really motivated, professional folks that just do a bang up job with what we do. You know, as Lisa can attest to smokejumpers, they're extremely physically fit. They would be, you know, compatible, I guess, or comparable to the Navy SEALs or special forces as far as their level of fitness, but they are very professional. When I first started working in Boise with the smokejumpers, I'd been around them for a number of years, but not on a day to day basis. And to see the work ethic and the procedures that they went through, you know, number one, to become a smokejumper and then to stay current, everything about it. They're just a first class group of people. I guess one of the good memories before I was flying smokejumpers was in Alaska.
And I'm going to back up just a second. Years ago when I was building ours, I volunteered for the Civil Air patrol and part of that volunteer work was working with young adults. We had a cadet program, guys and gals between 12 and 18 years old. And so we would do cadet orientation flights. And I had a number of young adults that I had, you know, gave them their first introduction to aviation. Well, fast Forward to about 2016. I'm flying into a place called Lake Minshuma Alaska, and I hear a helicopter inbound. And she called on radio and asked me if I was going to be on the ground for a bit. And I didn't think anything of it. I said, yeah, I'll be shutting down. Come on in. And when she landed, shut down. It ended up being a cadet that I had given her first flight, you know, 22 years earlier. And to see her, you know, and it's like, wow, you know, what we do, not only from a professional sense, but just sharing our passion. I've had two occasions like that where I've met people around the country that I worked with when they were teenagers. So that's pretty cool.
[00:30:10] Speaker B: That's amazing.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Yeah, those good memories.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah, excellent.
[00:30:14] Speaker C: Bob Just took all of, like, my answers because, yeah, it's the people, it's the places that I get to see. It's running into somebody that you talked to 10, 15 years ago that my memory's not that great, I guess, because they remember me and I don't remember them. And they're like, you influenced me to do something. I mean, that's what's really cool about this job. And I like, if you think of, like, a specific experience, flying the lead plane profile takes a whole lot of different skills, whether it's airspace management, knowing wildland fire, and actually manipulating the controls of the airplane all at the same time. And I think one of the amazing things to me is when I'll come off of a run and I'll look down and I'm like, I'm on speed, I'm on altitude, I use the right bank angles. I didn't say something stupid on the radio. And it all just happens. It's like this. They call it like this gel this, like you're in the flow, right? And realizing that I just did that without having to think. I didn't. Like, I've got this. And when you combine that with flying over something absolutely gorgeous, Like, I think about a fire in Southern California a few years back, late season, and I just remember I'm flying in the downwind of a drop pattern with the DC10 right behind me, and we're over the Pacific Ocean in the downwind and looking over and seeing the hills and the fire and just being like, I'm in the right time, the right place, this is where I'm supposed to be. And it's those kind of just those little things that make this job so amazing.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's got to be a. A great feeling. How long did it take for you to get in, like, that flow state when you fly, would you describe it as kind of being second nature at this point? No, no, no.
[00:32:06] Speaker C: It is such a perishable skill. And like, I'd look at like the 2023 fire season where relatively mild fire season, I didn't do a whole lot of flying. I did a lot more point to point flying.
My skills really perished that year. And then last year, a little bit busier season, I flew a lot more.
And of course, the beginning of the season, everything's just clunky and you kind of get up into that flow state. But then there'll be days when no matter what I do, it just doesn't come. And it takes work. And it's that reminder that you just have to keep focusing on what we're doing, that we can't let our guards down.
[00:32:45] Speaker B: Gotcha. Yeah.
[00:32:46] Speaker C: And then just constantly learning. And it's really cool because you'll have tanker pilots that'll call. I'll have tanker pilots call me up and say, hey, Lisa, I don't like what you did. And we talk about it and we go out and do it the next day and we figure it out.
[00:32:59] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's constant learning experience.
[00:33:01] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: Bob, what's your perspective on that?
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Yep. You know, I think Lisa's right. You know, every flight's a different flight. You can fly, you know, 10 missions or 100 missions, but every day is a different day. I mean, just you can launch in the morning and come back in the afternoon, and you've got different weather as an example. It's just a scenario that you've got to keep your A game going. And whether it's, you know, low level flying speed's important. When I was flying the PC12, I flew extensive instrument operations, IFR flights. And that is also, you know, a skill that you need to keep the knife pretty sharp on. You know, you're flying on approach down to 200ft and you break out and three seconds later you're landing. You got to make sure you're on on your numbers and flying at approach pretty tight. But all in all, I think enjoy it.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, when I flew with you in the PC12 and you had that checklist, even for something that I would perceive as simple like landing, you had me walk through all the steps on that checklist for landing gear and everything. Like, every time you do that, you look through the checklist just to make.
[00:34:16] Speaker A: Sure, you know, it's, we're all human. And at any given moment you could have a distraction, you know, Maybe you stubbed your foot getting into the car door. You know, family members got health issues, whatever the case may be. So. And I've got the philosophy, I'm single pilot, Lisa's single pilot. But we've got somebody in the right seat. That individual in the right seat, he or she is part of the flight crew as far as I'm concerned. And just like you were in the right seat, I'm going to utilize you as an asset and integrate you for part of my single pilot crew resource management. So to me it's important. That's done.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: Yeah, that was really cool to see. It makes a lot of sense to me that you use them too. I mean, two minds are better than one most the time.
Okay. What kind of advice would you give to someone who's interested in becoming a pilot and they don't know where to start?
[00:35:15] Speaker C: Oh boy, this is a big one.
[00:35:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: First off, I would say never stop chasing your dream. Like I said, this is my second career and I was very fortunate to have a supporting supervisor when I was working in Roz. But I did volunteer flying like I said with Civil Air Patrol. The build hours, once I started building time, got my commercial rating, multi engine commercial. Eventually my ATP networked with people on the airport. I was kind of the airport dog, if you wanted to call me that. On weekends when I wasn't working, I would do a flight for a part 135 operator. Somebody for hire, either, you know, moving people or moving whatever. I was contract pilot for a while with the state of Idaho and then that three year span I left the Forest Service before I came back to the BLM, I flew charter again 135. And then I flew corporate part 91. So just never stop chasing it. I mean, fire. During that absence away from the BLM especially I missed it. Our job is uniquely unique, for lack of a better term.
There's a lot of people that are going after airline flights. Airline jobs, UPS jobs, corporate jobs, they're all important jobs. But at the end of the day for me, I think the biggest day I had when I was flying an air attack mission many years ago and my right seater, we called in some tankers and we saved somebody's home. And that was like, you know, that was worthwhile, you know.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Yeah, nothing like that.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: That was one of the best feelings I had when we, you know, put the chalks under the wheels that day. And it's like that, you know, with the smokejumper missions now and how they can accomplish what their job Is, you know, getting everybody on the ground safely, getting the cargo where it needs to be. But all that was because I never stopped chasing my dream. And I was just, you know, I used to have a sign in my old office, never stop chasing your dream. I don't know who, I don't think I can coin that. I'm sure I copied it from somebody, but it's true. Just never stop doing it.
[00:37:37] Speaker B: Very good advice.
[00:37:38] Speaker C: I agree wholly with that and with that. Embrace the uncomfortableness of the learning. And this is another phrase that I can't embrace this like be willing to suck, to fail at something new and have a realistic expectation of how long getting to the goal is going to be. It's not going to come overnight. Neither Bob nor I just stepped into these positions as we've been talking about yesterday.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it is a long day to getting into there.
[00:38:11] Speaker C: And when I like when I left smoke jumping and entered into the development pilot program, it was five years from the time I left to the time I got signed off as a qualified leaplane pilot. And I'm still learning, I'm still chasing. And so if you want instant gratification being a pilot is that it's not the job for you. You have to work at it and you have to build the experience. I'm not going to say time because all flight hours are not the same. You have to build the experience to be good at your job and especially as Wildland Fire pilots. Because it is a very unique skill set.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a lot more variable, it seems like, than other. Some other kinds of flying. Yeah. I'm curious, how long does it take to get carted in a certain type of aircraft? Are they different depending on the aircraft?
[00:39:05] Speaker C: It is. It depends on what kind of ratings or licenses you have to have.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: All government pilots, whether it's blm, Fish and Wildlife Service, if they're going to be what's called a 2181 grade series airplane pilot, you have to have minimum of 1500 hours. That's an absolute minimum.
[00:39:25] Speaker C: And 1200 hours of pilot and command time in category and class. So if you're going to fly an airplane, it has to be an airplane land base, not a seaplane.
[00:39:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: Wow. Yeah.
[00:39:35] Speaker C: Like so, like, like somebody has a bunch of helicopter time. That doesn't count if you're going to fly an airplane.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Yes. It's specific.
[00:39:42] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:39:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: And then in my case example, the Twin Otter, before I came down to Boise, I had zero time in a Twin Otter. And so I started flying with an instructor Pilot, and that was on contract.
And I flew with him about 12 flight hours and spent a lot of time ground school, one on one ground training, going over aircraft systems, aircraft emergencies, operating limitations, things like that. And then I did my check ride with oas, was carded with the restriction that I couldn't do any passengers, which in the case of the Twin Otter is a restricted category aircraft, so we don't take passengers anyway. So then I flew for about another 38 hours by myself, just building hours, doing different types of flights. It was during the wintertime, so I was going into some airstrips.
I won't say they were paved airstrips, but they were snow floor airstrips. So different types of landing scenarios just to build the experience. And then once I had the close to about 44 hours, then I started training again with my instructor on having him going through the mission profiles. And then when I hit, I think it was 50.2 hours. Then we started working with the spotter and then continuing just to build that initial experience with the Smokejumper mission.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: Wow. So I didn't think about just all the different kinds of scenarios that you want to make sure that you have proficiency in before they let you go. Yeah.
[00:41:30] Speaker C: The aircraft is just one part of our job, but there's so much more that has the mission and then the airspace that we fly in that is equally, if not more important.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:41:43] Speaker C: Just flying the airplane is just step one.
[00:41:46] Speaker B: Yeah. How long. So how long was it from when you started flying the Twin Otter until you were. So if I understand it correctly, like you're. You're carted in every scenario, so you're allowed to go fly missions. Right. How long did that take?
[00:42:04] Speaker A: That was just under six months in my case.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Oh, wow. Okay.
[00:42:07] Speaker A: So it was a scenario that, you know, the aircraft was. It was during the off season, was dedicated pretty much to me, so. And I was able to fly almost every day, you know, five days a week if we had some weather. The airplane, when it's not in a mission, Smokejumper mission configuration, we can fly ifr. I'm an IFR pilot, so we would fly in the weather and, you know, was able to somewhat expedite that.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Very cool. You got to fly almost every day. How rough?
[00:42:43] Speaker A: Somebody's got to do it.
[00:42:45] Speaker B: Somebody's got to do it. Yeah. I'm also curious. So Mike Francis, he recently got carded in the PC 12. Right. How long did it take him?
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Well, I had had experience in the PC12 when I came to work for the BLM.
So my carding was a big about two weeks because I had well over the minimum amount of flight time. And so I did the initial check ride, which is what's called an equipment check ride. I'm evaluated on operating that specific aircraft. And then I also did an instrument proficiency check ride to see if I could fly into weather, fly on reference to our instruments only, and be, you know, regardless what's going on, you know, outside, minus thunderstorms or severe ice, of course.
And then about a month after that, I did my Air Attack checkride. And then right after that, my low level checkride in the PC 12. So I had all those cards done probably just within a few months. So it went pretty quick. Again, I had a decent amount of experience in the PC12, so that helped a lot.
[00:44:07] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:44:07] Speaker C: Yeah. And so for like Mike Francis making the transition. Well, he started out in the Kodiak, which is a point to point aircraft.
We don't use it for any kind of special use mission other than, I guess we do use it for air attack every once in a while, but the majority of its purpose is point to point moving people and cargo. He transitioned to the Smokejumper, to the Twin Otter. And so he went through the same process that Bob did then when he transitioned to the PC12. Since he's got a rapport with OAS and us, it's a relatively easy transition. He's got to go to a simulator like Flight Safety or something equivalent training for that specific airframe and then putting the hours in so it's relatively quick.
[00:44:49] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: If you go to Flight Safety or if you go to a level D simulator, which is a full motion simulator, 25 hours, make and model is what you need.
And the good thing about a full motion level D simulator is engine failures, engine fires, electrical failures, you get to do all that inside the flight simulator. If there's a hiccup, you can freeze a simulator, debrief on it. My first chief pilot at the Forest Service years and years ago told me, go to Flight Safety, you're going to do this stuff. That way when you get back and you have the real emergency, you can enjoy it.
[00:45:30] Speaker C: So all of us, we go to some kind of simulator training, whether it's flight safety, Flyright, Simcom, those are just vendor names. But it's a full motion simulator that we go to every year to refresh. Refresh? Yeah. Those skills that we don't see very often in real flying.
[00:45:49] Speaker B: Gotcha. It's just constant.
[00:45:51] Speaker C: Yeah. And everything breaks in the simulator.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:56] Speaker C: Engines out, of course, pressurization goes, you lose your horizontal, your hsi, like, it all just breaks. Yeah, it's worst case scenario, but it is, it's a very safe environment to, to do that kind of training.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: That's good. They. They step you up a little bit. Yeah.
[00:46:11] Speaker C: And very cost effective as well.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely.
Okay. In closing, is there anything else you'd like to add, anything we missed, you want to mention?
[00:46:21] Speaker A: You know, I've been very fortunate in my career. And what got me into both with the Forest Service, which unfortunately they went away from for a number of years, was the mentorship or development program. But I got my foot in the door with that flying infrared missions and a King Air 200 and a Citation jet.
And in Alaska, we restarted in conjunction with nao, developing our own pilots and being involved with that process.
It's been enjoyable. It's been fun. There's challenges to anything you do in life. The scenario is just enjoy it. And for me, the BLM's been a good outfit to work for. I mean, there's no perfect job anywhere in this world. You win a $20 billion lottery, that's not going to be perfect. It doesn't matter. And anything in between. So I think it's critical that you work for somebody, hopefully blm. BLM Aviation, I think, is the A team within the Department of Interior with what we do. And I'm not blowing smoke at anybody. I think that to me, and from my experience that's, you know, being around some of the other agency pilots, things like that, I. I feel pretty solid about that.
So again, never stop chasing your dreams.
[00:47:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it's very rewarding. It's just really rewarding.
[00:47:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's awesome to hear you guys reaching out and supporting other pilots younger than you, showing support and mentorship, giving back a little bit for what you've learned.
[00:48:00] Speaker C: For sure.
[00:48:00] Speaker B: That's awesome. Thank you, Bob and Lisa, for joining us today for the 33rd episode of wildfire Matters to tell us more about what it's like to be a BLM pilot. If you have questions, comments, or even suggestions on different topics for our podcast, please email them to blmfafnifcommmentslm.gov and use wildfire Matters podcast in the subject line. To learn more about NFC or the BLM, please visit our website nifcy.gov and follow us at BLMFire on Facebook x and Instagram. Thanks for listening in and please join us next time when we hope to spark a conversation with members of BLM Interagency Hotshot crews. Until then, stay safe and be Wildfire Awareness.
