Welcome to FireHelo!

The Fire Helo web site contains a first person account of Fighting Wildland fires with a Helicopter, and Helitack crew. The first hand account is written by the Pilot himself and provides a fascinating look into the dangerous world of fire fighting from the air. Fire Season 2007 is here! Pilot Ken Carlton commands “Copter 520” with the Sierra Helitack crew in Trimmer, California. Help us collect video and photos for the new DVD this year. Also, the 2004 DVD is still available. Get Yours...read below! - Editor,

Ok, so this is the year…fire season started cranking early at the Angora Fire in South Lake Tahoe. Attention Helitack crews, Engine crews, and Hotshots…etc. Send us your photos for inclusion into out video.

Part 135 and "Long Line Training"

I'm in Fresno, going through the FAA's Part 135 training for my State of Alaska Fire Contract this summer. I put you on the "Alaska Adventure" mailing list because I thought you might want to see Alaska from the point of view of a helicopter pilot. Feel free to delete, forward or let me know if you want to be deleted from the list.

Part 135 (FAA Rules) are for commercial operations that are smaller than the airlines. I'm spending some time flying and a lot of time on the computer taking written tests...OH, every 30 or 45 minutes or so I get to start up a helicopter and do a maintenance check. When I'm not doing that I'm helping Jack, my mechanic, load the trailer we're taking to Alaska. It is being pulled up by one of the truck drivers to Tok, Alaska on Monday. He will return to the "Lower 48" after delivering the truck and trailer. We will not have a Rogers fuel truck driver, as the State of Alaska is furnishing our fuel for the summer. We are flying the helicopter to Alaska Thursday the first of May.,

Jack had to refuel and defuel the helicopter four times as each time we filled it up with Jet A, the Aux. tank would leak. I told him he was going to wear out the fuel...putting it in and taking it out...it was highly filtered when he finished! With the aux. tank installed, I'll have three hours of flight and about a 300 mile range. We burn about 90 Gal. per hour and have 300 Gal. on board.

We plan on taking off from Fresno CA. on May first and flying to Omac WA.

More about my Alaskan flight plan later this week.

Ken Carlton

Bell 212HL a Bell twin engine helicopter US military designation UH-1N Powered by two Pratt and Whitney gas turbines. The photo is the helicopter I'll be flying...as a test I'm making you a one time offer to see who reads this "stuff"...for the first 40 people that contact me I'll provide a link to follow me around as I fly this summer. I've implanted a satellite tracking device that will show you my location (on a moving map) any time I'm in the air...please don't tell Shirley about this feature.



Ken Carlton

How was Mesa??

Well folks after 21 hours of flying and eight thousand ($8,000.00) dollars of Jet A, I arrived in Tok, Alaska Saturday at 1800 hours (that's 6PM for you civilians). The Bell 212 performed great with a average ground speed of 135 MPH, well, a tail wind helped out a lot.

The crew consisted of me, the Mechanic Jack, and Ken Kuahara also a pilot. Kuahara needed some flight experience in the 212 and this was a good way to get some flight time and have a wonderful trip.

Leading up to the trip was a lot hard work performed by the folks at Rogers Helicopters in Fresno. The Mechanics spent many hours preparing N212HL for the summers work in Alaska. 'Hotel Lima' got many new parts including tail rotor and hub, various main rotor bearings and assemblies, and of course snow shoes for her skids (also know as Bear Paws) so we don't sink out of sight in the muskeg. All of this work paid off as we had Zero problems on our trip.

The flight started Thursday May first at 1100 hours in Fresno and our first stop was Chico, CA. Cold weather had set in, well, cold for me as it was 80 when I left St. George, Utah. At 8,500 feet, our cruising altitude, it was 25F. Soon I had all my jackets on, and sweat shirts, and we hadn't even got out of California. After finding the little thingy that turns up the heat we warmed up.

On up to Klamath Falls, Oregon and then to Columbia Gorge on the Washington boarder. What at beautiful country we live in! At the Columbia Gorge Airport we had to call out the fueling guy as he'd already gone home, at 1700 hours. There was a 25 dollar call out fee. He showed up and promptly told me that he was a volunteer fire fighter and he was waiving the call out fee as we were a fire fighting helicopter, is this a great country or what! We arrived at Omak, Washington after 2000 hours (ok that's a hard one for civilians...that 8PM) and had to get get a cab ride into town from a "Holy Jihad Warrior" driver who nicked me for 20 bucks...see how thing even out. The next morning (Friday May 2nd) we flew into Canada to Kamloops. The Canadian Border/Customs guy was a hunter and cleared my shotgun and Helicopter into Canada with no problems. The Canadian Flight Service (FAA) people were very nice to deal with, customer service is a very high priority with them, and it shows!

Next was north to Prince George (who was, for you history buffs, the first cousin of St. George) were there was a plethora of helicopters all flying around like mad humming birds. Vancouver Island Helicopters were getting ready for the Black Gold Rush of 08. Major oil and natural gas deposits were discovered in British Columbia and Yukon Territory, the rush is on to develop them...Yeah!!

SNOW, LOTS OF SNOW! We can't fly in snow so it was a good thing it was on the ground, as flew north we were flying just behind a major snow storm, from the day before.

Ft. Saint John was next, and we saw even more helicopters and corporate jets flying the oil magnets around. This is where Dr. Phil called me. Yes, we have Dr. Phil on this list! He was tracking me and "Hotel Lima" via our implanted tracking device. My cell phone rang and Dr. Phil, who is by the way, a close friend of mine, says, "Hey Ken, (he calls me Ken) your in Fort Saint John". He was tracking our every move, Thanks Dr. Phil.

Soon we were flying near the Alcan Hwy. Its always nice to have a road near when flying helicopters. Next stop Ft. Nelson. Fort Nelson is where I met Ronda, she was born in 1973, and she is HOT. When your in the Town of Fort Nelson, people waive at you when your with Ronda, her red color makes her a real head turner. She like many other airport loaner cars have their very own personalities. I like airport loaner cars, so we filled up Ronda with 100 octane Av Gas and drove the 1973 Grand Prix into Fort Nelson. We were going to paint the town red but actually we were in bed and sound asleep by 2100hours.

For our final day of flying we flew from Fort Nelson to Watson Lake, then to White Horse and on to Northway Alaska. We had some snow showers so we were IFR, which means "I Follow Roads" in helicopter talk. So down the Alcan Hwy we went enjoying the scenery. Our reentry in the the good old USA was via Northway, Alaska. Here was our first big Alaskan aviation adventure. I landed next to the gas pumps and near by, about 50 yards, were parked three for real Alaskan BUSH PLANES. You can tell these are BUSH PLANES as they have very large Bush tires, snow shoes strapped to the struts, sometimes a dog or two in the back and generally look run down at the heels. Unbeknownst to me the closest one was not tied down, chocked, nor the brakes set. You pilots can see this one coming a mile away, right? As I rolled off the throttles of Hotel Lima the small BUSH PLANE spun around 180 degrees. My down draft had spun the light airplane around and I was lucky it didn't push it into one of the parked planes. The owner came out of the cafe and gave the Customs Officer a piece of his mind, who was waiting for us, I didn't think he could spare any myself. He did move the plane to the other side of Northway Airport. Later, after clearing Customs, I went over to the café and made my apologies to the BUSH PILOT, which were accepted with grace and a certain acknowledgment of partial fault.

From Northway to Tok, Alaska was only a 15 minute flight, and several dozen Moose. More from Tok later.

Ken Carlton