One of the goals on this trip was to meet up with a French pilot who I met several years ago in Oakland. At the time, David was visiting San Francisco to study English and somehow got hooked up with me for some instruction in the Bay Area airspace and procedures. He was getting a U.S. certificate issued on the basis of his French certificate, but needed to fly with an instructor until that process was complete. We exchanged email sporadically over the years and David often suggested that I come to France for a visit.
I emailed him three weeks before our departure to see if we might be able to rendezvous. David now flies fire-fighting aircraft for Sécurité Civile and it turned out that we'd be in the south of France near where he is based. With a little planning, I provided the necessary security information so he could arrange a tour of their facility at Marseille-Marignane Airport.
The drive to Marseilles from where we were staying was a bit longer than expected, mainly due to our difficulty in finding our way through the back roads to the A9 highway. We also encountered some traffic slow-downs due to an accident or two, but the trip was otherwise uneventful considering this is the high tourist season. Once on the main highways, we found the road signs were easy to follow. This is seldom the case when traveling on the back roads, but that's another story in itself.
We parked our rental car, met David, and the first stop was at the national police office where we exchanged our passports for airport security badges. Next we passed through airport security screening before being allowed onto the airport ramp area.
We knew that our tour could be interrupted at any time as the base was on one hour alert status, meaning the flight crews had to be ready to respond to a fire call and be airborne within one hour. This base provides aerial fire fighting support for all of southern France and Corsica. The have even worked as far East as Greece. The previous day had been a busy one for fires, but the day of our visit turned out to be quiet. There are four different aircraft at this base - King Air 200s, Grumman S-2F3AT Trackers, Canadair 415 amphibious aircraft, and two modified Bombardier Q400s.
After introducing us to several of his fellow pilots, we made our way to the plane that David flies - the Dash 8. The Q400 that has been modified to carry 2600 gallons of fire retardant or water. The interior seats are removed during the fire season and re-installed during the winter months when the planes are used as a government transport.
The flight deck has a simple, clean layout and includes some additional equipment for monitoring and releasing the fire-fighting payload. David mentioned that during the deployment of the water or fire retardant, the center of gravity changes dramatically in just a few seconds. This requires careful control and throttle inputs to keep the plane level and within the desired airspeed range as the plane's weight quickly drops.
The plane has a heads-up display and when I looked through it I couldn't help immediately gushing "Cool!" Try as I might, I couldn't get a photo that really captures the view through the display, but if you're used to glass cockpit style airspeed, altitude, and attitude readouts, you'd be right at home using a heads up display.
Next stop was the Canadair 415, a versatile amphibious aircraft that can essentially do a touch-and-go on a lake and pickup over 1500 gallons of water in about 12 seconds. Then it can fly off to drop that water on a fire. As the pilot who gave us the tour explained, the Canadair is first and foremost a boat. Powered by two P&W turbo-prop engines, the overall construction is very heavy with countless rows of rivets. The cockpits of these aircraft have been modernized with EFIS displays as well as an electronic system that control the release of the water or flame retardant.
We didn't get a tour of the Tracker or the King Air 200, but I did leave with two gifts: a Q400 cap and a book describing the Sécurité Civile operation. A big thanks to David for his kindness and generosity in providing a glimpse into the dangerous and rewarding work of aerial fire fighting.
A few days later, driving back from a beach trip, we saw smoke from a large fire burning near the town where we are staying. Circling above were four Sécurité Civile fire-fighting aircraft. By sunset, the smoke was gone.
