Fire time in Castaic.

[Mr. C]

Picking up quick. We have about 8 copters from the red ones to the yellow ones. The big fire retardants dropping plane and this dude I’ve never seen before. So far a few miles away at least.

 

[Mr. C]

Good news at least is we have the upper and lower lakes to draw water from very quickly.

 

[coolchange]

There’s some kind of fire up there about once a week.

 

[socal0487]

Picking up quick. We have about 8 copters from the red ones to the yellow ones. The big fire retardants dropping plane and this dude I’ve never seen before. So far a few miles away at least.
View attachment 1146963 View attachment 1146962 View attachment 1146961

First video is a Erickson sky crane. Last picture is a chinook paid for by Edison and utilized in LA County

 

[pixrthis]

They hit them hard quickly nowadays, seems very effective.

 

[rrrr]

First video is a Erickson sky crane. Last picture is a chinook paid for by Edison and utilized in LA County

The story of the Erickson S-64 Air Crane is pretty cool. Jack Erickson was a pioneer in the use of helicopters for logging. Sikorsky had built the CH-54 Tarhe for the US Army in the 1960s, and then produced the S-64 civil version.

Erickson saw that the S-64 was superior to military surplus Boeing C-47 Chinooks and civilian Model 254s being used by other heli-logging operators. He began using them in the 70s. When Sikorsky contemplated shutting down production of the S-64 because of limited sales, Erickson made a deal with the company in 1992 to purchase the FAA type certificate and all of the jigs and fixtures to build the helicopter.

Since then the S-64 has become the primary heavy lift helicopter worldwide. Erickson saw that the S-64 would make an excellent firefighting aircraft, and the company began producing the modular water tank and snorkel system that attaches to the fuselage of the helicopter. It's always fascinating to watch the huge insect like aircraft work.

 

[Sherpa]

the red sky crane is probably the team out of Redding Ca. it's a bad ass bird...... met the team once in Idaho on their day off.

she can fly 6 out of 7 days in a row. the 7th day is all maintenance. I don't remember the exact* number but I think it costs

over 4500 an hour to fly..... add in about a 5 man team and a few pilots and you're talking some serious dough..... its an odd

job that is probably alot of fun..

 

[dread Pirate]

We have 2 of the Redding based Skycranes based down the road working on the 6 Rivers Complex.