'Part-Time' Unit Gets Little Rest
It's not always easy for members of the 302nd Airlift Wing at
Peterson Air Force Base, CO to remember they're an Air Force
Reserve unit.
"We really feel like an active-duty unit, because we're
constantly busy," Air Force Senior Master Sgt. Jeff Flight, the
unit's chief loadmaster, told online journalists and bloggers in a
July 10 teleconference. "But this is our choice and we really enjoy
what we do."
The 302nd, which combats land fires using aerial delivery, has
helped to fight the wild fires in Southern California.
"One of our specialized missions is
the modular airborne fire fighting system, or MAFFS, which more or
less supplements the commercial air tankers in combating the wild
land fires with safe aerial delivery of the fire retardant," Air
Force Lt. Col. Ronald Wilt, 302nd Operations Group commander, said.
The 302nd Airlift Winghas one of only eight C-130s that can perform
this specialized mission, Flight said.
MAFFS is a self–contained, reusable 3,000 gallon system
that stores and disperses fire retardant. "[The retardant] comes
out and lays down, at first, in a bright red, basically to identify
where it has been," Wilt explained. The color fades away after
about five days, he added, and then the retardant acts as a
fertilizer and promotes growth in the area.
At 28,000-pound load of retardant can be released in about eight
seconds, Wilt said.
"When the retardant leaves the aircraft itself, the engineering
design is such that it tries to maintain a center of gravity," he
said. Each of five tanks holds 500 gallons of retardant, with the
other 500 gallons in the tubes, he added.
The timing between touchdown and takeoff with a new load of
retardant is very important when combating the fire, Wilt said.
"I've had as little as 11 minutes between touchdown and
takeoff," he said, "but it's [usually] probably 20 to 25 minutes to
get back in the battle with the fire."
Though the mission means working long days in temperatures of
100 degrees or more, Flight said, the airmen are happy to do it.
"We really enjoy being together and working this mission, because
it's our most rewarding mission," he said.
(Aero-News thanks Navy Seaman William Selby, with the New
Media directorate of the Defense Media Activity)