CalFire T95 active today (3-7-12)

[Daveroo]

not that this is really news i guess..but i find it interresting that Joe "Hoser" Satrapa is in tanker 95 ,which is one of CalFire's Grumman S2T firefighting aircraft,he has been doing touch and goes for the last ten minutes or so,at McClellan field...this maybe for training a new pilot,as i heard a differant voice in T95 to begin with,or that T95 had been worked on..Hoser normally flies T89 out of Grass Valley ATB during fire season...they could just be getting ready for an early start..as we are way below the normal rail.snow fall levels,,last week they did a snow pack reading..on the day last year there was 124 inches of snow at the test place,,same date this year there was a tolot pack of 15 inches....not a good sign,and we continue to have small brush fires all winter....usually control burns that have "escaped" but still have grown to 50 or more acres..

PS..as i type Hoser announced he was leaving the traffic pattern for the "training area" which is normally a canyon near the Goergetown ca area..

[TARPSBird]

Hoser is a legend in the F-14 community. If my house were potentially in the path of a fire I'd definitely want to have him airborne. :)

[pilottj]

You are right Dave, I think it is going to be a hot dry summer this year.

[Daveroo]

Hoser is a legend in the F-14 community. If my house were potentially in the path of a fire I'd definitely want to have him airborne. :)
he is alot of fun to listen to on the scaner..he is ofcourse very profesional..but he also has a sence of humor and teases some of the other calfire pilots now and then,but when it comes to the deep,steep walled canyons we have here..its usually hoser who will go in deep where the others stay high and make basically useless drops waisting retardant...where i live is very close to the auburn dam site..never finished,but the concrete keyways are there and some roads..the top of the ridge above my house,to the riverbottom is almost 1100 feet...and its an almost vertical drop....the entire canyon is like this..higher in some places ,lower in others,,the forresthill bridge is 730 feet from the water to the road deck and the bridge is a good 300+ feet below the top of the canyon..back to the steep deep canyons...hoser will put the S2T on one wing and drop sideways into the canyon and sort "fling" the mud onto the canyon wall....its something to see...and when Aero Union still was in business and had the DC7 working...OMG..those guys were nuts!! they dove that DC7 down into the middle fork of the american river canyon..came up up river ..was majestic to see....if not for the DC7,P3 and calfires own S2Ts the fire that day would have gone to forresthill.....major blaze

[TARPSBird]

Dave, nothing you said about Hoser's technique would surprise anybody who knew him back in the day. He's even admitted to scaring himself on a couple occasions - I would've liked to see those flights. :icon_lol: