Wild Fire by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781539873945
Amazon: 1539873943
Barnesnoble: 1539873943
Goodreads: 32964375
Publisher: CreateSpace Publishing
Published: 2016-01-01T03:00:00+00:00

It was a week later and Gordon didn’t know what was happening to him.

It had started in Cairns when Mark had dragged him across the airfield within minutes of landing. They’d strolled through the cool dawn to a remote hanger a half-mile walk from the Antonovs—which were so damn big that they didn’t seem to shrink with distance. A Beech King Air had been waiting for them: an older version of the twin-engine spotter aircraft that Mark flew in Oregon.

“You have your fixed-wing ticket?” Fixed-wing airplane rather than rotorcraft.

Gordon had picked it up a couple of seasons ago. It was before he’d landed the job with Mount Hood Aviation and wanted to have his options open. “I got my instrument rating and have everything I need for my commercial, except air time.”

“Multi-engine rating?”

Gordon could only shake his head. Did Henderson think he was made out of money? Multi-engine training time cost a lot per hour. The same reason he didn’t have his commercial ticket yet…two hundred and fifty hours of flight time for that was a big chunk of change.

Mark took the operations manual out of the seat pocket as they prepped the plane and dropped it in his lap. “Learn it.”

Gordon had sat in the cockpit and read as Mark prepped the plane. He’d barely noticed when the helicopters had taken off—wouldn’t have if the Antonovs hadn’t bugged out first, each with their four massive D-18T Progress turbofans at full roar.

Once Mark was ready, they’d flown the King Air up to Cooktown, with Gordon nearly crapping his pants at the controls and Mark only telling him what to do.

“We need to get you some more airtime in this.”

No kidding.

At five hundred kilometers an hour, Cooktown was only twenty minutes away. But even in that short time Gordon could appreciate why this was such an exceptional spotter plane for firefighting. It had great visibility out the window. With a stall speed of only a hundred and forty kilometers an hour, he could practically hover over a fire. At five hundred, he could outrace any helicopter, match any smokejumper plane, and even act as a guide for air tanker jets when the heavy armor had to be called in. As long as someone else was picking up the tab, he was glad to learn to fly it.

The week since the pizza gathering had been spent flying to bushfires all across the northeastern peninsula that was Far North Queensland. Most of the fires were too small to justify the might of Mount Hood Aviation, but they flew anyway. When there was no fire, they flew training scenarios, putting in long days in remote areas. Mark never touched the controls…not even the radios.

He left it to Gordon to learn to handle all of the air-to-air and air-to-ground traffic. Then he layered in resource management of aircraft and fuel times, drop capacities, and fire tactics. The last Gordon had thought he knew, but he’d been right—the ICA had a very different worldview high up over the firefight.

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