Hoist operations are important not only to rescue trapped firefighters or bring them to confined areas, but also to rescue trapped tourists in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. For this task, the Eagle Single is equipped with an externally mounted hoist on the right side of the aircraft, while the Hueys have an internal hoist on the left side.
Hoisting
Hoisting is important in the range of duties for the helitack crew. To allow firefighters to get as close as possible to the fire, or even to extract them if a normal pick up or egress over land isn’t possible, hoisting can be a game changer. Another task of the NDF aviation service is search and rescue (SAR). When people are trapped by wildfires or when accidents happen in the rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range, hoisting is essential. The Eagle Single has a Goodrich external hoist that can carry 600 pounds. The Hueys have an internal Goodrich hoist that is also capable of lifting 600 pounds. Because of weight and center of gravity, the hoist on the Eagle is on the right side of the aircraft and the hoist on the Hueys is placed at the left side.
“The only trade-off with the Huey is that the entire hoist is one package.” Kirkland says. “The internal hoist weighs 168 pounds, so we have pretty good weight savings when we pull that hoist out. With the Eagle Single, all the integrated parts – the cables, the wiring, the hardpoints – remain on the aircraft. If
we take that hoist off, it would only save us 68 pounds. So most of the time we leave it on the aircraft. From my point of view, our hoist program is a very professional program. Our pilots are top-notch and our crew members have really picked it up well. The pilots that come here have done some sort of hoisting in the past. We had a company come in for a one-week course of hoist training and all of the crews picked it up very fast. There are, of course, other agencies called to help out when people get hurt. My intention was, when I came into this position, to get us more visibility with all of our local cooperators and say, ‘OK Reno Fire, Lion County Fire, Story County Fire, East Fork County Fire Protection, Tahoe Fire Protection District, you know who we are: the Nevada Division of Forestry, but we have this capability of hoist.’ In conjunction with that, what I am charged with is establishing contacts within these agencies to start conducting training events with them. That gives us exposure as well as it gets them trained on how we do our operations. They as well see we are professional. I think we are well on the way to prove to the community and the other operators that we have a quality hoist program.”
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