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DISPATCHTHE
PG 4CONAIR GROUP INC. | 1510 Tower Street, Abbotsford, BC,
Canada V2T 6H5 | c o n a i r.c a
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Joanne Goodridge, Newsletter Editor by email at:
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ISSUE #27
July 2015
A hot, dry summer for British Columbia
Email sent to Conair on July 2nd, 2015:Good evening ! I am an
old acquaintance of Captain Ray Horton, and I just wanted to pass
along to Conair my sincere thanks for your prompt attack on the
Cedar. (Cassidy Airport area, south of Nanaimo) fire this
evening.
We were just down the road at Michael Lake and I must say I was
becoming concerned until I saw the familiar tankers! THANK YOU
again. Please do pass on my sincerest thanks to this evening’s
crews.
Kindest regards... Capt. Rick Zimmerman, Manager, Safety
Investigations, Jazz Aviation LP
Convair 44 actioning The West Kelowna, Shelter Cove wildfire on
July 21st
August 5th: The fire situation in B.C. remains a major concern
as crews battle 140 fires across the province – 36 of them, human
caused.
There have been a total of 1,445 fires so far this year in BC
(as of August 10th).
Our newest large wildfire, Wood Lake (formerly West Harrison
FSR), is estimated at 1325 hectares as of August 10th; it is now
40% contained.
Other active wildfires of note: Boulder Creek, Cougar Creek and
Elaho. For more information, please visit:
http://engage.gov.bc.ca/bcwildfire/
Congratulations to our Conair calendar contest winner for July;
photo taken near Manning, Alberta.
Meanwhile, south of the border:By Ray Horton
This fire season got off to a great start in the U.S. with the 2
USFS contracted RJ’s heading out in late May. Tanker 160 went north
to Alaska while T161 deployed to southern California. By the end of
June, Tankers 162 and 163 had been added to the mix, picked up by
the USFS under Call-When-Needed (CWN) contracts.
To date, Aero-Flite tankers and crew have remained primarily in
the west and mid-west, working fires in Alaska, California, Oregon,
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado. Tanker 160
returned to the lower 48 after spending almost 2 months support-ing
the activity in Alaska alongside Conair’s 2 Alaska based Convair
580’s.
As of late, one RJ has seen a great deal of action in the
parched forests of northern California while the other 3 aircraft
and crew continue the fight against numerous wild-fires plaguing
Washington, Oregon and Idaho.
Proven last year throughout the U.S. and again this past winter
in Australia, the RJ85 continues to be a very worthy and capable
component of the next generation airtanker fleet. Its retardant
delivery system, speed and handling characteristics all combine to
make this aircraft an excellent airtanker. Congratulations and many
thanks to the engineering, production and maintenance crews who
have dedicated these past 4+ years to design, build and transform
the RJ85 into such a successful firefighting aircraft!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that whenever I travel to
a base where Conair CV580’s have been in the past, I continue to
hear the praise and appreciation tanker base personnel have for our
crews and our aircraft. Such comments continue to verify the great
people within our organization and the tremendous ambassadors you
are for Conair. I am both proud and fortunate to work with you
all!
- Ray
July 21st - The West Kelowna, Shelter Cove wildfire
July 21st Shelter Cove wildfire June 24th Harrison Hot Springs
wildfire
Wood Lake wildfire taken on the evening of August 2nd by a local
resident
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France’s Q-400 celebrates its 10th anniversary Below is an
excerpt of a letter that Conair France received from Victor
Devouge, Chef du BMA, regarding the 10th anniversary celebration of
the Q-400 in Marignane, France.
“Being questioned by some people when it arrived at the BASC,
the Dash 8 Q-400 quickly assumed its position and found its place
amongst other Sécurité Civile aircraft, while we could acknowledge
its qualities.
In particular, for instance:
- Its speed (cruising speed 650 km/h, Milan is the fastest bird
flown by the BASC)- Its payload capacity (with a 10,000 liter tank,
it can spread a high efficient retardant barrier)- Its reliability
(with 95 % operational availability, it provides satisfaction, both
to BASC technical staff and flight crews and also to our
firefighting partners)- Finally, its versatility, which makes the
Dash 8 an instrument at the service du Ministère de l’Intérieur as
well as the French state.
In 10 years of good service, the Dash 8 Q-400 has added multiple
various missions in far away places, destinations for instance:
Haiti, Guinea, Turkey, Algeria, Albania, ... some destinations were
media covered, others more discrete and out of the public
limelight. But they were no less important.
Of course, we cannot talk of the Dash 8 without looking at the
missions at la Réunion Island that is now a regular annual
occurrence for the SOFT and Dash 8 pilots. On this subject, I want
to welcome the “Le Dash 8 à La Réunion “ publication and
congratulate its author for the text and the beautiful
pictures.
Milan is a French eagle. But for the BASC pilots, firefighters
and air traffic controllers, it is the dash 8 Q-400 radio call
sign. You can see it today proudly decorating the Dash 8’s tail. It
symbolizes power, span and beauty of this plane, as well as agility
of its pilots. Today, beyond their skill, I wish to recognize their
engagement to realize difficult missions, in sometime very short
delays. Receive my congratulations and my gratefulness in what you
accomplish every day, with the BMA and BASC support.”
Junior Forest Rangers...Duffles delight, thanks to Conair By
Cliff HendersonPartnerships are a big part of the JFR program –
they include host community crews, work projects and educational
tours. Generally all of our crews rave about the cool tour of the
tanker base that they took and how huge the planes are. Our
contract tanker staff are always generous with their time and
happily share their aerial fire fighting knowledge and experi-ences
with the JFR crews.
This year, Conair Aerial Firefighting took their partner-ship
one step further though and helped outfit the crews. Conair
provided duffle bags to each of the leaders and members on all
eleven crews! They were very well received with lots of “awe-some”
and “thanks so much” comments.
Our crews have finished training, packed up their new duffles
and headed out to their field locations for the summer. Look for
them at a tanker base near you.
To Conair, we thank you, not only for your continued partnership
and generous donation to the JFR program, but for your continued
support of our fire-fighting operations in Alberta.
If you would like to have a look through the “Le Dash 8 à La
Réunion“ book, please see Joanne - there is a copy at
Reception.
Safety Message of the monthBy Buck Page
We all encounter hazards and correct them every day. Most of
them are minor and require little effort, such as when you blew on
your coffee to ensure it wasn’t too hot before sipping, or when you
looked through the window in the door before opening it.
Occasionally, we encounter more significant hazards that take
some extra effort to make safe, like moving a power cord out of a
walkway, seeing a damaged ladder on the hangar floor, or finding a
leaking chemical.
Our Safety Management System (SMS) has tools for us to use to
report these hazards and help ensure they have been addressed, and
also to help us benefit from the lessons we can learn from them to
prevent future exposure.
• Hazard Report forms are available in all hangars at YXX
• Aerostudies has a “Safety Reports (SMS)” tool that can be used
to report hazards (and incidents)
• Your Occupational Safety & Health (OSH) and Pilot Safety
Committee (PSC) representatives and Safety Manager are always
available to discuss hazards and mitigations
Not taking advantage of the opportunity to correct and report
hazards means other people are likely to encounter them. Our job as
proud professionals:
See A Hazard Fix A Hazard (and/or) Report A Hazard
Thanks for doing your part!
BUCK PAGE CRSP, CPP
Safety Manager
Conair Pilot Fatigue study project approvedBy Jeff Berry
Conair has partnered with two academic institutions, UBC
Okanagan and Camosun College and one industrial partner, Latitude
Systems Inc. and is proud to announce a recently approved 2 year
Consortium for Aerospace Research and Innovation in Canada (CARIC),
project intended to have a closer look at pilot fatigue.
Fatigue management is critical to ensure safety of flight. The
current understanding of fatigue and the measurement of
contributing factors and the regulatory regime are all based
largely on 705 (airline) operations.
The unique nature of our operations needs to be considered and a
tailored fatigue management system needs to be developed to enable
the management of the “hazards” associated with fatigue as part of
our existing Safety Management System (SMS).
Rest requirements, as dictated by the current and proposed
fatigue management regu-lations, which are based on the current
generalized understanding of fatigue in aviation:
• Manages fatigue based on inadequate calendar schedule.• Occurs
often in the first few days of flying activity, after periods of
non-flying alert . • Forces rest, on rested pilots.• Takes into
consideration negative impact on crew currency.• If not watched,
can permit flight by fatigued pilots.This project will focus on
quantifying the fatigue component associated with the work-load of
an airtanker pilot in the course of his/her duties. This study will
span multiple pilots in multiple aircraft types.
• We will sample single and dual pilot cockpit environments.
• We will measure the fatigue in water skimming and land based
operations.
• We will develop a program that can be used within our Safety
Management System to provide a tailored fatigue management.
More information will be rolling out as the academic
institutions start their research process.
You may even be part of a visit with one of the research teams
at an active tanker base during the remainder of this season.
