AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2012 - 80

Flying the tanker

As the chief supervisory pilot for 10 Tanker since its inception, Jack Maxey has done things most pilots will never have the oppor tunity to do—and his exposure to test flight and certification was very rewarding. Maxey, who has logged more than 13,000 hours, was chief pilot for Omni Air International when it was an all-DC–10 operation; he was a DC–8 captain for Air Transport International; and he’s worked for other airlines. “It takes a certain kind of person to do this kind of flying,” he said. It has benefits: “The airplane doesn’t know if you’re flying in Levis or not.” (Nomex flight suits are a contract requirement while on fire missions.) VFR skills are critical. “Ninety percent of what we do is VFR, daylight, handson flying,” Maxey explained. “With the guys we’ve brought in, it’s sometimes been a challenge to get them back to their Cessna 150, VFR-chart days.” Good planning keeps you out of most of the smoke, he added. Columns of boiling smoke are extremely turbulent—and you must remain in visual conditions to follow your King Air lead plane, which is about 1,000 feet ahead of you. —MPC

100 square feet. Both of the company’s DC–10s have full operational approval that must be renewed after six years. The two converted airliners operate primarily under Part 91 of the federal aviation regulations—except when they’re on firefighting missions, when they operate under Part 137 (agricultural aircraft operations). “It allows you to drop things from airplanes, and it provides a waiver to required distances from things,” Hatton explained. “We choose voluntarily to emulate Part 121 with our training, operations, and maintenance.” Twice a year, flight crews train in a Level C simulator, with an emphasis on IFR work. “In this business you don’t fly very much,” he added. Hatton is very pleased with the company’s results so far. “We have flown over 420 fire missions on over 70 named fires, in six states and two foreign countries, and without exception the professionals who requested, dis-

patched, and guided these events were impressed with our delivery.” Keys to that success are the fact that the load is carried externally; it’s delivered by gravity flow, not under pressure; and coverage is computer-controlled through constant-flow doors. “If you have a given flow rate at a given altitude, airspeed, and wind, it’s just math to determine coverage level,” he said. Dropping retardant ahead of a fire, the airplane can create a fire break up to three-quarters of a mile long and more than 50 feet wide. The average mission to date is one hour, four minutes long; the tanker can reload on the ground in as few as eight minutes. A Beech King Air serves as lead plane, guiding the tanker to the specific

AOPA PILOT •

80 • MAY 2012

AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - May 2012

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