Disclaimer: I don't own planes, thelaterose99 is this stories wonderful beta, and any mistakes that are left are purely my own.
Chapter 3- In the Dark of Night
Windlifter had had to turn down the audio level on his mike the moment it was clear that Caddie had successfully set down. Between the tower crew, the emergency response team, and Dipper the cheering had been deafening. Even though the big helicopter had seen Cabbie do emergency landings a few times like that in the past, the plane usually ran into some sort of problem in the air about once every 2 to 3 years, the C-119's ability stick this type of landing still never ceased to amaze Windlifter.
With the compromised member of their team safely on the ground, Dipper had been given the go ahead to land on the grassy auxiliary strip while Windlifter had been given permission to land on the tarmac of the main strip as long as he stayed out of the airport's emergency response team way. The Skycrane decided to overfly Cabbie and flew further down the runway, where it appeared to clearer.
Unlike Cabbie's, Windlifter's landing was uneventful. On his wheels he rolled closer to the downed plane. Under the harsh glare of the spotlights the C119 was a mess. Smoke and ash streaked everything, and the craft's silver underbelly was pocked with char marks from flying cinders. In short, Cabbie looked like he had just flown through a volcano, and with the concerned glances that the airport's responders were giving him, Windlifter suspected he probably looked nearly as bad. After all of this was over everyone on the Piston Peak's Air Attack team was going to need not only a bath, but also good coat of paint.
"Cabbie, how are you my friend."
"Better now that they have gotten one of my air intakes unclogged." He nodded hoarsely towards a mechanic who was currently poking the removed filter. "I haven't had to stick a landing like that since 'Nam.'"
Windlifter tried to get a bit more information out of the cargo hauler about what exactly had gone wrong, but by this point the big planes eyes were squeezed shut in pain as a member of the response team probed another one of his air intakes. The blacked mess finally came free causing Cabbie to dissolve into a coughing fit bad enough that the C-119 had to lock his brakes to keep from rolling into the fire tender near his tail.
Assured that Cabbie's was being well taken care of, even though the plane was still not going to be getting off the ground any time soon, the Skycrane set off to make sure Dipper was okay. Hopefully by the time he had checked in with her, the highbird would be in place and he could check in with the mission base.
The deployment of the highbird significantly altered the communication landscape of the fire. Patch was able to transfer the Piston Peak Attack Team's radio traffic from the nonfunctional park repeater to the mobile repeater in CAP Niner Eight Kilo's fuselage. The dispatcher was also able to tie into several of the other communication nets.
It was comforting to be able to listen to the chatter of both air and ground staff that were on their way to help. It was also a huge relief to Blade, Windlifter, and her to find out that the County Fire Chief was willing to become incident commander on this disaster. Piston Peak's Air Attack team could finally find rest…or at least as much rest as a team with a ground crew on the front line of the fire and an aircraft that had gone down in the forest could find.
"…and when the smokejumpers discovered that Dipper is actually about a decade older than Cabbie…" Blade Ranger was rattling off any story he could think to tell when his radio crackled to life. For a few brief moments he hoped that is was Dusty, but then he realized that the call was coming in the interoperability channel instead of the Piston Peak Air Attack one.
"Helicopter on station, helicopter on station. This is CAP Two Eight Hotel. Please Respond, Over."
"This is Chief Tree Zero One. Over."
"Chief Tree Zero One it is a pleasure to meet you, though I wish it would have been under different circumstances." The plane sounded genuinely saddened. "I will be acting your spotter plane for the next 6 to 8 hours."
"Where are you currently located? Over." Blade searched the skies trying to locate the running lights of a small plane.
"I am sitting about fifteen hundred feet above your position. Over." The plane wiggled its wings in the attempt to be a little more visible. It worked and Blade's eyes started to track the plane across the sky.
"Alright, I see you."
"And I see you." The plane gave a soft chuckle, before her voice turning deadly serious. "I am currently looking down at one helo and if I squint I can see the small aircraft in the trees. I have been told that he is one of yours. A SEAT? Over."
"A trainee SEAT." Blade allowed some of his exhaustion to seep into his voice.
"Float plane?"
"Pontoons."
"Good." The search plane said with an usual level of confidence.
"Good what?"
"A torn off pontoon would explain the large piece of wreckage I am spotting about 25 yards from the main crash site."
"What about the rest of him?" Blade was grateful to get additional information, but Attack Chief couldn't help wondering if he was ready to hear that he was standing watch over a corpse.
"Everything else looks fairly intact, but I really hope your SEAT is out cold, because that doesn't look like a very comfortable position to be in."
"Can you give me some more details?" The gears in Blades mind were already spinning up. If Dusty was in a relatively large piece there was a chance that he was still alive.
"Well currently 'Dusty' is hanging upside down and held at least a good 15 feet off of the ground in a couple of trees." The plane above looked as though it was pulling a tight spiral in order to get a better look at the wreckage. "I suspect that the trees are the reason that your SEAT is remarkably intact. It looks like their branches ate his speed, but he somehow managed to fly through a forest without smacking head long into a trunk. Very lucky."
"With everything that has gone wrong over the last 24 hours, I think we were owed a miracle." Though, Blade thought, there was still a whole lot of time for things to go wrong.
"We will be expecting a team of 3 night capable helitankers that will set up a retardant line in 30 minutes. One of them is bucket capable and be standing by to put out any sparks that get too close." The CAP plane remarked after an awkward pause. "If you would like I could come low and take some recon photos. They would not get to your base until midmorning tomorrow, but they are better than nothing."
"Any photos you can give us will help us plan the rescue mission."
"Understood. Dropping to 500 feet." As the small plane spoke, Blade could hear it dropping altitude. With practiced grace it flew a box around the crash site. Each side of the box was oriented with the cardinal directions; each corner was a tight loop that realigned the plane with the correct heading. Once the box was completed, the little plane made a flyby of Blades rock. Waggling its wings in greeting as they slowly soared upward. "Returning to 15,000 AGL. Is there anything else I am going to do for you while I am on station?"
To start with Blade couldn't think of anything, then an idea popped into his head. "Do you know any good stories? I figured it Dusty is awake and unable to communicate we can at least keep him company. If he is out then it will at least keep me awake."
"I think I may be able to come up with a few…" The plane paused for a long moment, then started speaking again. "Okay, got one. When I first got started doing search and rescue we got called up to look for a truck. A bright orange geology one who had gone out to collect sample that was over due by two days…"
Maru closed his eye against harsh florescent lights of tower for a moment and the next thing he knew Patch was giving him a gentle but firm whack on his canopy.
"Maru."
"I wasn't sleepin'." The Mechanic muttered as he blinked sleep from his eyes.
"I didn't say you were." Patch said evenly as she updated something in the emergency response data base.
"What do you need?" Maru yawned, grabbing for his coffee mug. The liquid in it was cold and tasted funny, but it at least got his pistons firing.
"I need you to go hit your hanger."
"I am fine." Maru tried to argue as he took another gulp of the cold, terrible coffee.
"Maru, you practically had to rebuild the Chiefs hydraulics this afternoon." Patch smirked. "And I know you are exhausted because you are currently drinking from my coffee mug and didn't even comment about the hazelnut creamer."
Well that explained the strange taste, Maru stared down at the mug and sure enough it had Patch's name written on it in black sharpie. The coffee was also a milky color instead of the black a proper cup of coffee should be. The realization kind of made Maru want to go brush his teeth, but he couldn't admit defeat now. "Well maybe I decided to give the creamer a second try."
Patch snorted. "And I am the Queen of Sheba. Go get some sleep. The Highbird said to expect some photos of Dusty's crash site about seven this morning and before you ask it looks like he is pretty intact. I need you rested and back here to start rescue planning."
"Sounds like a plan." Maru set down Patch's coffee mug but didn't budge a wheel.
"Do I need to push you off the tower to get you moving?" Patch smirked.
"I am going, I am going. Don't get your timing belt in a knot." Maru barely made it back to his hanger before his eyes slipped closed. While the old forklift was perfectly capable of staying awake for days when the siltation required it, his body also knew when grab a few hours of shut eye.
"…it turned out that the poor vehicle had gotten itself trapped behind a pretty significant rockslide and had required an extra four days to find an alternative way out of the campground and I ended up spotting him fueling up at the local gas station as they were coming back into town…" CAP Two Eight Hotel pleasant voice rambled on about their first successful mission. Then they paused and banked sharply towards the North. When they spoke again you could practically hear the plane smile. "Do you hear that?"
Blade perked up his ears and heard a familiar thrum of helicopter routers. Then the three helicopters crested the hill in an explosion of light. The Civil Air Patrol plane above him rapidly took control of the situation and directing the helicopter to paint a triangle of retardant around Dusty. Once their buckets were empty the little aircraft then directed the choppers to a location on the river open enough for them to safely scoop and then sent the night firefighting craft across the forest to put out sparks.
It was almost like watching a tightly choreographed dance. The three helicopters were the performers and the voice of the spotter plane was the music. On the cliff overlooking the crash site, all Blade could do was sit back and enjoy the show.
Dipper's eyes were red and swollen. Windlifter suspected that it wasn't just because of the smoke. The seaplane was clearly upset about the entire situation that their team had gotten themselves into. There was no reason for Dipper to worry herself sick. Dusty was either going to be okay or he was probably already dead, and there was nothing that she could possibly do to make things better right now.
"Get some sleep." Windlifter said gently brushing Dipper with his blades. Then the big helicopter settled on his wheels and closed his eyes. "We take off at dawn."
Author's Note: Hello everyone, I know that this particular chapter was kind of a transitional one. We are working on getting all the players in place for Dusty's rescue but I promise that there will be some Cabbie, Smokejumper, Windlifter, and Maru goodness to keep as busy as the pieces fall into place. Those pieces are going the be the focus of today's Aerospace notes.
When it comes to emergency services aircraft they tend to work on very specialized teams. We get to see a lot of an Air Attack Team whose job it is to nip wildfires in the bud in the movie, but in order to get Dusty out of the trees they are going to have to lean on some other air crews. One of those groups is the CAP (Civil Air Patrol) planes. These aircraft specialize in emergency communication, aerial photography, and finding downed aircraft. They are also occasionally used to circle a downed aircraft or other target to help facilitate rescues. While CAP aircraft are heavily used in a lot of different disaster scenarios they are often purely in a supportive role so you don't really see them in the news.
Night helitaks, on the other hand, are a pretty showy group. These helicopters are mounted with bright search beams that allow them to operate in conditions that ground all other aircraft. Most of these aircraft transport water via bucket so their range and utility is limited, but if you have a relatively small target that you are trying to protect from a fire the night helitak team can keep the flames at bay until additional support can arrive.
The last group I would like to bring up is the Super Tanker. Super Tankers are massive birds that can put down retardant lines that are up to three miles long and a football field wide. Super Tankers are usually not used to put out spot fires but have been found to be incredibly valuable for herding larger fires away from sensitive structures or even whole communities. They have been used to provide buffer zones for evacuation roots. These are awesome birds, but you have to be careful working with them. Their retardant stream is heavy enough that it could not only knock any plane that flew through it to the ground but it has also been known knock down trees and even to damage ground vehicles its spray path.
Again, thank you so much for reading. I hope that you will stay tune for the next installment. Also, if you have a moment drop me a line or a review. I would really love to get your feedback on the story thus far, as well as, info on the aerospace stuff you would like to learn more about.