PROVO — Standing under a helicopter hovering just feet off the ground with rotor blades whirling can be a little hair-raising for ground crews intent on attaching needed firefighting equipment to the workhorse machine.
"It kind of gives you a little rush," said Jordan Petereit, part of the Utah Fire and Rescue Academy on-call crew during training Friday with a Bell 206-L4 helicopter.
"It's exhilarating. It made my blood flow more than I thought it would," said John Petereit, his brother.
"The helicopter is big and loud. You just focus on what you've gotta do," said Tyler Goetz. "I trust that pilot. We've gotta trust those pilots. Our lives are often in their hands."
"It's a lot more scary than you think, but you're a sissy if you run," said Blayne Pilgrim, one of three female firefighters among the 15 doing the field training on Friday.
Hooking a nylon sling full of shovels and pickaxes to the undercarriage of a chopper may sound simple sitting in a classroom while having the procedure explained, but when it comes to actually performing the task, things change dramatically.
"Does it take nerve? Yeah, but you just watch the hook," said Brian Cottam, one of those participating in Friday's training.
The firefighter not only has to load the net correctly with the proper amount of poundage, but he or she has to stand resolutely beneath a high-powered machine that's noisy and wind-whipping dangerous while hitching the line to the belly of the aircraft.
"This is something they all need to try. We're educating them, building a knowledge base. Most of them won't need to do this in the field," said Mike Scott, a helitach supervisor. "But if they do, it won't be unknown. They will have done it at least once."
The firefighters first spend a week in the classroom learning the basics of putting a cargo load together. Loads can consist of food packages, tools, water hoses, water cans and numerous other miscellaneous supplies like tents and safety gear. They learn to calculate the weight-carrying capacity of various aircraft and they learn to understand and factor in wind direction and windspeed. They practice the hand signals used to let the helicopter pilot know when to hover, when to lift off and what hazards may be present.
Then comes the hands-on practice using the 150-foot-long line and and "belly hook-ups" that attach directly to the helicopter body.
The emphasis is always on safety, management and procedure, Scott said. "It's complex, very complex. There's no room here for outside-the-box thinking. There's no Captain Kirk stuff here."
The crew members practice in twos with one signaling the pilot and the other hooking up the load.
"It's a team effort. If part of the team is weak, the whole team is weak," said helicopter pilot Mario Nickl. "You want a strong team."
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