A special thanks is sent to Scott Vail, Fire Staff on the ...

A special thanks is sent to Scott Vail, Fire Staff on the Eldorado National Forest, who provided the ideas and artwork for the report cover.

NATIONAL STUDY OF TACTICAL AERIAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT TO SUPPORT INITIAL ATTACK AND

LARGE FIRE SUPPRESSION

Final Committee Report October, 1998

USDA FOREST SERVICE DEPARTMENT OF INTERIOR

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i

AVIATION TRIANGLE, ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii

PREFACE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

BACKGROUND . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

THE TARMS STUDY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

THE STUDY CHARTER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Vision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Goals/Objectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Guiding Principles (Assumptions) Used In The Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Recommendations And The Product Expected . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 The Timeline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

THE STUDY COMMITTEE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

SCOPING BY THE STUDY COMMITTEE OF ISSUES and FIELD SURVEY OF CURRENT TACTICAL AERIAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT PERSONNEL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

AVIATION SAFETY IN THE TACTICAL FIREFIGHTING ENVIRONMENT . . . . . . . . . . 9 Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Safety Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Review of Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

THE STUDY PLAN AND PROCESS FOR TARMS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

STEP 1: OVERVIEW AND A REVIEW OF HISTORIC USE, DEMAND AND TRENDS IN USE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Leadplane and Airtanker History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Air Tactical Group Supervisor History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Current Tactical Aerial Resource Management Aircraft and Bases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Current CWN ATGS Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Current Staffing Period of Leadplanes and Air Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Current Human-Aiding Technology (HAT) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

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STEP 2: GATHERING OF INFORMATION ON CURRENT AND POTENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS, POTENTIAL AIRCRAFT AND RELATED TOPICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Interrelationship of Organization, Technology and Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Current Aerial Supervision Roles, Organization and Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Current Roles and Responsibilities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Current Tactical Aerial Resource Management Supervision Requirements . . . . . . . . . 28 Current Experience and Training Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Current Large Wildland Fire Suppression Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Current Aerial Firefighting Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Methodology Used To Establish Current Aerial Firefighting Workload. . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Current Technology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 ATGS Aircraft Vendor Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35 Potential Future Tactical Aerial Resource Management Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Aircraft Procurement Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Initial Attack/Extended Attack, Large Fire Support, and Call When Needed Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

IA/EA/LF National Fleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Supplemental National Fleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 CWN Local Fleet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 Acquisition of One or More Aircraft Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 NFMAS Analysis - General . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Data Used In the Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39 Potential Economic Value of Current Leadplane Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Potential Economic Value of Having Initial Attack Qualified Airtanker

Pilots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Analysis of How Critical Speed Is For Leadplane Aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

STEP 3: DEVELOP EVALUATION CRITERIA AND ORGANIZATIONAL, HUMANAIDING TECHNOLOGY AND AIRCRAFT OPTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 Evaluation Criteria for Organizational and Human-Aiding Technology Options . . . . . 42 Organizational Options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 The Shared Mental Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 ATGS Aircraft Pilots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44 The Aerial Supervision Module (ASM) Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The Air Tactical Pilot Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The Air Tactical Group Supervisor Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The AirBorne Suppression Supervisor Concept . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 The Aerial Supervision Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46 ASM During Initial Attack and Extended Attack . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 ASM On Wildland Fires Managed By Type I and II Incident Management Teams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

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Tactical Aerial Resource Management Study (TARMS) - Final Committee Report - October, 1998

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