FIRE CREWS TRAIN AIRMEN GET FLYING TIME WITH C-130S.

Byline: Greg Botonis Staff Writer

PALMDALE - The four-engine C-130 roared overhead at more than 100 miles per hour just a few hundred feet above the ground at U.S. Air Force Plant 42.

As its target approached, the crew at the rear of the plane released 3,000 gallons of water - dyed bright orange - which sprayed out behind the plane, just as it would over a forest fire.

That was the scene at Air Force Plant 42 on Tuesday as Air National Guard airmen trained with U.S. Forest Service C-130 tankers equipped to fight forest fires.

``We use these every year so we have to be prepared,'' said Bob Brady of the U.S. Forest Service. ``Fire season is completely unpredictable and we never know how bad one year will be.''

The training going on through Friday allows Air National Guard crews the opportunity to ``fill and fly'' the tankers and to perform several low-level drops over the airfield and nearby areas of the San Gabriel Mountains.

It also affords the Forest Service the chance to perform routine ground coordination efforts guiding the planes to drop sites.

Used for decades by the Air Force as a cargo plane, the C-130s owned by the Forest Service are equipped with something called the Modular Airborne Fire Fighting System.

The systems consist of a single tank filled with fertilizer-like flame retardant, which is ejected through two nozzles at the plane's rear. The chemical is forced out of the tubes by air pressure stored in another multisection tank.

Other systems used on air tankers owned by private companies can make multiple drops by limiting the amount of retardant dropped. The MAFFS system only provides for a single drop - all its contents are expelled at once.

The Forest Service generally contracts with private companies to operate firefighting air tankers, but on major fires private resources can be quickly exhausted. Then Air National Guard crews are called in to fly the Forest Service's MAFFS-equipped planes.

``These would only be used in large fire campaigns when all of our contracts are exhausted and we don't have access to any other tankers,'' said Shawn Lawler, Forest Service information officer. ``Unfortunately, our contracts are exhausted several times a year so we have to employ our MAFFS systems.''

The Forest Service has eight MAFFS-equipped C-130s: two at Port Hueneme in Ventura County and the others in North Carolina, Wyoming and Colorado.

The planes are flown, filled and maintained by the Air National Guard while the Forest Service conducts ground operations to direct firefighting efforts.

The training has been done on a large scale - 16 or more crews of 12 - since the severe brush fire season in 1994 that exhausted nearly all the resources of private companies, the Forest Service and the Air National Guard.

``They had to scrape together pilots just to keep up the firefighting going,'' said Lawler. ``We'd used virtually everything we had and the fires just kept going.''

Although Forest Service personnel say this year's Southern California brush fire season should be relatively mild, they still caution people to take the necessary steps in preparing themselves and their homes.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) Air National Guard pilots train with a U.S. Forest Service C-130 aircraft specially equipped for fighting fires. For training missions such as this one, the plane dispenses colored water rather than retardant.

(2 -- color) As a signalman guides the aircraft, an Air National Guard pilot on a training mission taxies a Forest Service C-130.

(3) The Forest Services mixes fire-retardant chemicals and fertilizer in a portable tank, for use in its firefighting C-130s.

(4) Air National Guard crews practice filling a firefighting C-130 with fire retardant.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer