Helos

View of the staging area, fuel trucks and helicopters

The plan today was for me to take Briggs and Calvin up to Tweetsie Railroad in Blowing Rock for the day. The only dicey part was that Briggs spent the previous night with a friend and wasn't ready to go early like he often is, and too he had a football practice in the evening we had to be back for. On the way up we passed a sign cautioning about traffic related to the Forest Service trying to put out a brush fire, north of Marion. I slowed and stole a glance as a rudimentary staging area, including 3 helicopters. There was a tent, several Forest Service vehicles and several folks. One of those folks was a member of our church! He's a "smoke jumper." I mentioned all this to the boys and made note to tell Eli when we got home.

Well, our travel tanked at Linville: traffic everywhere. There was a jam in Linville. There was another at Banner Elk. And finally a miles-long back-up going into Blowing Rock. We endured it as long as we could. But finally the boys asked if we could just turn around and go home. I didn't need much convincing! We drove back to Banner Elk and had fastfood for lunch. Briggs remarked that it was a case of 4 hours of driving for a fastfood lunch! We set off for home.

Waiting in the parking area for the helicopter to take off

As we made our way back toward Marion, I wondered if there might still be people at the brush fire heliport, and how much trouble I would encounter for stopping to see if our church-friend was still around. I tried to be discreet as I pulled into the parking area, but we were greeted by a very friendly Forest Service employee. We exchanged introductions, and I explained what I was interested in (seeing the church guy if he was still around). The short answer was that he had left. But we got shuffled up to various others in the staging area, including ultimately the captain, or boss, or chief of the heliport. I was struck by the several layers and branches of command: personnel for fighting fires, personnel for the helicopters and personnel to run the impromptu heliport. There was Kenny who first met us; then a heliport supervisor-trainee whose name I forgot; and finally Denise, from Rome, GA who was boss of the whole place. We met several other fire-fighters and pilots, and the radio-operator. Denise guided us through what was going on.

Crews' hangout: middle of a field

We were told that indeed Steve was no longer there, but that we were welcome to hang out and see what was what. We got word that a flight would be leaving soon (30 minutes) and once it had left we could get a close-up look at the remaining helicopters. The boys were game to stay. We got invited into the tented shelter area the crews use. We watched the pre-flight briefing and its take-off and then got escorted on a tour of a Bell 407 helicopter by its pilot, and guy named Brad from Colorado who (with his wife) worked for a helicopter leasing agency in Atlanta.He has been flying for 10 years, servicing oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico, running EMS in Colorado, and finally supporting fire-fighters for the US Forest Service.

You can't tell it but the rotor on the second helicopter is turning

We had a blast, though most of the time I regretted that Eli was not along. Realizing that we're only 45 minutes from the place, I covenanted with myself to bring Eli back soon.

At home later, Eli filled us in on specifics of the helicopter was saw, and was able to track down a news report on the fire in McDowell County they were trying to contain. The plan is to go back Friday morning and see if Eli can score some quality time at the same place.

 

 

Personal tour!

Personal tour!

Take-off!