Tankers attacked Black Crater blaze

Tollgate resident Teresa Mahnken, caught up in the excitement of the Black Crater Fire, had an experience that seemed like a scene from 1944.

"I heard it coming," she said, "and when I looked up there was this huge airplane right over my head, all four engines thundering…It was like something from World War II."

What was flying over Teresa's head was a Douglas DC-7B, an aircraft actually built after the war, in the 1950s. It was designed as an airliner, but now the craft is used by Butler Aircraft Co. of Redmond as a fire bomber, also known as an air tanker.

Last week was more than exciting for fire-fighters on the Black Crater fire and residents of Sisters, but for those living on Edgington Road, Crossroads and Tollgate, it smelled of disaster as they evacuated their homes and headed for the American Red Cross shelters.

When the wind came up - as it does every afternoon in summer - the smoke billowing out of the fire was mean-looking and black; indications of more heat and fuel than anyone wanted to see.

It was at that bleak time that the throaty roar of the 18-cylinder twin-row Curtiss Wright radial engines that keep Butler Aircraft's DC-7B fire bombers in the air could be heard all around Sisters. Help was on the way.

The Forest Service twin-engine Beechcraft lead plane swooped over the leading edge of the fire, giving drop instructions to Capt. Larry Kraus and Co-pilot Ron Carpinella in Tanker 62.

Capt. Kraus had his hands full, literally, as he eased the huge DC-7 below the peak of Black Crater and into the roiling air mass caused by the high winds sweeping over the mountain. As he slowed the airspeed of the 113,000-pound airliner to between 120 and 150 mph, at an altitude of 200 feet above the surface, the target came into view.

Co-pilot Carpinella was watching everything in the cockpit to make sure the DC-7B was purring along as it should be, and to ensure the FS lead plane was out of the way when Capt. Kraus released the nearly 3,500 gallons of fire retardant in a long line to rain down on the swirling maelstrom below.

The retardant (not "borate," by the way) does not actually put the fire out, but cools it down significantly giving the firefighters on the ground the opportunity to work on the blaze and get it under control.

DC-7Bs were built in the mid-'50s in the Douglas Aircraft plant in Santa Monica, California; the pride of the Douglas fleet of airliners that flew passengers for Continental, National, American, Pan American and foreign airlines.

It has a 117-ft. wingspan, with a maximum weight of 126,000 pounds. If my math is accurate, that's over 63 tons of aluminum, steel, gasoline and fire retardant that can scoot along at almost 300 mph. Sisters is only a short hop, skip and a jump from the Redmond Airport which makes the turn-around time for each drop about 20 minutes.

The four Curtiss Wright R3350 18-cylinder radial engines are supercharged and originally developed 3,500 hp each. But with only 100 octane low-lead aviation fuel available (instead of 145 octane) the engine develops around 2,800 hp - which can cause occasional strain and a little puckering for the crew climbing out of Redmond with a full load on a hot day.

Even at that, however, the four huge engines burn over 400 gallons of fuel per hour (along with 28 gallons of oil), which means there has to be at least 2,400 gallons of fuel on board to make the run from Redmond Air Center to the fire and back.

Pat Leroux, standby pilot at Butler Aviation, is well experienced in the Douglas DC-7B with over 12,000 hours of Pilot in Command time (PIC). He has been flying multi-engine aircraft since 1969 when he was co-pilot in a Boeing B-17 flying for Bruce Hill Aviation; a year later he qualified to be PIC, flying from the fire bomber's left seat.

There are times in a fire bomber pilot's life when it's all on the line while flying through smoke, down drafts, in heavy turbulence and watching the low terrain looming up around him. Pat tells of the time he and his co-pilot got into a tight spot and as they were clawing for altitude, Pat said, "Smell that…?" To which the co-pilot replied, "Smell it? Hell I'm sittin' in it…"

Pat also knows how strong the DC-7 is. While on a UN grasshopper control project in 1986 on the border of Morocco in Africa, he and a fellow spray plane were struck by surface-to-air rockets while flying over mountains at 11,000 feet.

Unfortunately, the hit on the fellow DC-7 caused a huge fuel explosion and the aircraft went down, killing the crew. Pat's DC-7 was hit in one engine which caught fire, but the engine tore itself loose, taking the fire and part of the wing with it. Even though the battered Douglas had lost three feet of wing and was laboring on three engines, it stayed in the air for two more hours, allowing Pat and his crew to land safely.

The next time you hear those powerful Curtiss Wright radials thundering by and look up at a DC-7B aluminum billboard overhead, be grateful there are people and firms that "keep 'em flyin'." Without such tools to fight forest fires things could be lot hotter than they were in Sisters last week.