by Bill Lavender
Abbottsford, BC Canada--Worldwide, most ag-pilots fly over row crops, whether applying insecticides, herbicides or fertilizers. However, there are a growing number of companies that are involved in other areas of aerial application. A few of these companies focus on one aspect, like fire fighting. Canadian company Conair Group, Inc. is one such company. Founded in 1969 by a group of six men from Skyway Aviation, an agricultural spraying operation, Conair's (a derivative of "contract aircraft") mission has been to provide specialized aerial fire control services through the outstanding performance of its employees, along with a dedication to achieving safety in everything it does.
Conair has grown to one of the largest, if not the largest, privately owned aerial fire fighting companies in the world. Headed by one of the original six founders, President and CEO Barry Marsden is responsible for a fleet of 47 aircraft dedicated to aerial fire fighting. Conair provides services primarily for the Western Canadian Provincial and Territorial Forest Protection Agencies through a range of service contracts with periods of up to 10 years. Its home base is Abbottsford, British Columbia, Canada. With over 150,000 square feet of hangar and shop space, Conair's facilities have been designed to service and maintain its fleet in every possible manner, from painting to avionics, major repairs and modifications.
Conair aircraft fly over 5,500 hours a year. Primarily these missions are located in western Canada, but also throughout Canada. Once in Quebec, Canada, Conair dispatched 10 DC-6s with 3,600-gallon tanks and 2,000-foot swaths to treat mosquitoes. Conair has served forest protection agencies throughout the world, even as far away as New Zealand and Australia.
Conair started with a fleet of TBMs for spraying forestry and fire fighting roles. The fleet grew to include A26 bomber aircraft and DC-6s. In 1978 the Conair Fire Cat (Grumman S2F with its pair of Wright Cyclone R-1820s engines) was added to the fleet. Conair developed a turbine version (PT6A-67AF) Fire Cat and sold 14 of them to France's fire fighting agency.
Over the years, Conair has evolved into three major components; fixed-wing aerial fire fighting, rotary-wing operations, third party engineering and maintenance and repair services (MRO). During this time, it acquired a fleet of forty helicopters (Frontier Helicopters and Conair Helicopters) involved in all types of aerial work. In May of 2001 Conair elected to divest itself from the helicopter business, sold off the helicopter fleet and wound down the business unit in October of that year. In addition, the company corporately separated the third party MRO business unit into a standalone entity now named Cascade Aerospace, Inc. Conair Group, Inc. remains as the standalone corporate entity exclusively for fixed-wing aerial fire fighting activities. This article is about Conair.
With more than 130 employees, Conair is dedicated to safety. At Conair, safety is everyone's responsibility, whether in the maintenance hangar or at the fire zone. Says Rick Pedersen, Conair Vice President and General Manager, "With so many aircraft and personnel, it is vital we have and implement an effective safety program. Conair and its employee group have worked hard to provide a safe work environment and manage risks for customers and employees alike. Conair's safety record provides for no lost aircraft in over nine years and 60,000 flight hours."
Conair employees four, full-time management pilots who oversee the flight program for sixty pilots. There is also a full-time safety manager that is responsible the implementation and oversight of a comprehensive safety management program both in the air and on the ground. "We focus on hiring the right people with the right attitude," says Pedersen.
The Chief Pilot, Dennis Graham, is responsible for more than 60 pilots. Each of these pilots fly an average of 120 hours during a fire fighting season (120-130 days) beginning in April and ending in September.
At the beginning of each year, every pilot must go through recurrency training that includes ground school (with an IFR simulator) and flight training followed by a flight check. New pilots are required to attend about three weeks of training, depending on the type aircraft he/she will fly, and 10 hours of flight training, followed by a check ride which will be with a Conair pilot as delegated on behalf of Transport Canada or by Transport Canada.
Conair prefers its pilots to start working as bird dog pilots. This gives the pilot a better insight to how the operation works. After two to three years as a bird dog pilot, he moves up to the right seat of the larger air tanker or to a single seat air tanker. This equates to approximately 700 hours of flight training before he becomes an air tanker pilot.
Based on seniority, a pilot bids the type aircraft he desires to fly and location where he wants to be based. Due to training cost and safety issues, a pilot is required to stay with his type aircraft for at least three years. However, the Canadian Forest Protection Agencies ultimately determine which aircraft are assigned and where they are based. Each air tanker team also includes a bird dog pilot, a licensed mechanic and a mechanic's school trained assistant. Pilots are paid a base salary plus flight time, the amount depending on their seniority, type aircraft and experience. There are various levels of standby alerts established by the customer Protection Agency to designate different situations.
Red alerts (Days) are when the pilot must be on base and available for immdediate dispatch and departure.
Yellow alerts are when the pilot must be available for dispatch and departure within 30 minutes.
Blue alerts are when the pilot is on-call but off-site.
Green alerts are when the agency has called off duty time due most likely to weather conditions for a three to five-day period. Pilots must observe three days in thirty or thirteen days in ninety as Blue or Green days.
Retirement is mandatory at 65 years old. One pilot recently retired after 35 years of service with Conair. Fifty percent of Conair's pilots have been with the company longer than ten years.
An in depth look at Conair's fleet of Air Tankers and Bird Dogs:
THE AIR TANKERS
• Eight Convair CV580s powered by a pair of turboprop Allison 501 D13s, each developing 4,000 shp. This ex-airliner-type aircraft has been modified for fire fighting by a joint venture effort between Conair and another Canadian company, Kelowna Flightcraft to provide a high performance air tanker that is able to deliver 2100 U.S. gallons of fire fighting material with a range of 945 nautical miles fully loaded, flying at 270 knots. It is complete IFR and de-icing capabilities, allowing it unrestricted positioning.
• Three DC-6s powered by four double-row Pratt and Whitney R-2800s, each developing 2,400 horsepower. Also an ex-airliner, the DC-6 is slowly being replaced by the Convair 580s. It is capable of carrying 3,000 U.S. gallons at 215 knots.
• Five AT-802Fs, each powered by a PT6A-67 engine developing 1,350 shp and capable of carrying 820 U.S. gallons with the Air Tractor fire bombing gate. The AT-802F ferries loaded at 155 knots.
• Ten Conair Fire Cats (modified Grumman S2F), powered by a pair of Wright Cyclone R-1820 engines developing 1,200 horsepower. The Fire Cat can haul 880 U.S. gallons at 175 knots. It is slowly being replaced by the AT-802F with its less expensive to operate single turboprop engine.
• Four CL - 215s, owned by the Provincial Government of Alberta and operated and maintained by Conair. This 43,000-pound aircraft is powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney R-2800s, developing 2,100 horsepower. Being an amphibian aircraft with two water scoops, it can load 1400 U.S. gallons in twelve seconds while scimming (more like a high-speed taxi) over a body of water. Depending on how close the fire is to the load zone, the CL - 215 can make a 1400-gallon drop every three minutes.
THE BIRD DOGS
Conair's thirty air tankers are supported by 16 bird dog aircraft; five Turbo Commander TC 690As, eight Aerostar PA600s and three Cessna C-206B Grand Caravans (FLIR-equipped; Forward Looking Infra Red). The bird dog aircraft are IFR-equipped with a suite of sophisticated avionics.
Each bird dog aircraft has a PA system with speakers mounted forward and aft. This allows the pilot to warn the fire fighters on the ground of an impending drop.
Typically, the Cessna Grand Caravans are teamed up with the Air Tractors and CL-215s. The faster bird dog aircraft fly with the larger air tankers.
The bird dog platform "commands the air show". By flying dummy runs, they make sure the air tankers are capable of a safe entry and exit, even during engine-out procedures for multi-engine air tankers. They set up fire fighting runs downhill and identify any hazards. Because of the bird dog team's (pilot and Air Attack Officer) efforts, when the air tanker pilot enters the fire zone, he knows exactly what to expect.
Conair aircraft use tracking devices to give position reports. When using terrain-based units, modems send position reports every thirty seconds through the Internet for monitoring. Satellite phone modems give position reports every two minutes. Within 30 seconds, a call-in for a fire is interfaced with an initial fire report. In thirty more seconds a decision is made whether to assign an air tanker and to dispatch it. Depending on the alert level and location of the call-in, the arrival time to the fire is five to thirty minutes.
Beneath Conair's logo are three words; people, safety and service. These are the words that the company is built upon. Without its dedicated employees and its attention to safety and service, Conair could not be the effective aerial fire fighting company that it is today. A visit to Conair's facilities in Abbottsford easily demonstrates the company is dedicated to those three all-important words.