Palmer Tibbo was fresh out of flight school in 1967 when he first learned the hard truth about the danger of using aircraft to douse forest fires.
His roommate, a fellow rookie pilot named Yannick Dutin, and captain Ronald Penney were fighting a fire near Bay St. George in western Newfoundland when their water bomber went down, killing both men.
Mr. Tibbo, now 62, has lost too many pilot friends to count over his 43-year career. He was a casual acquaintance of one of the pilots who died on the weekend in the B.C. Interior. While over the years he's dabbled in flying commercial airliners, air ambulances and executive aircraft, water bombing fires has always drawn him back, he said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. Mr. Tibbo, based in Gander, is now chief pilot in Newfoundland's forest fire protection service.
He currently flies a Bombardier 415 aircraft, known in some quarters as the "Super Scooper" for its ability to refill in seconds while skimming the surface of even small bodies of water.
Flying a plane from point A to point B and landing it safely is complicated enough. What's it like to fly 100 feet off the ground dropping liquid on a moving target with flames licking at your wings and smoke blinding you?
That's not quite true. It is a high-risk environment, but we do have our safety measures and you don't generally fly right through flames. You don't go flying through clouds of smoke either without having a good idea of what's on the other side. The main difference from regular flying is we're so low to the ground all the time. Most accidents are at the surface of course, at our altitude you're in that high-risk zone all the time. It's one thing to lose an engine at several thousand feet. It's another at a couple hundred feet. And when you're at 100 feet or less, that's where most of the turbulence takes place, even without fire.
And when you add fire?
With fire, you can add smoke, visibility can be very limited, and with hot air rising and cool air rushing in, the wind can be very intense.
Have you had any experiences that got your heart racing?
Oh, over 43 years, I've probably had hundreds. One I can recall, we were getting a very, very hot fire, flames were coming up pretty high. A wing got into the extreme heat, so one wing wanted to go up, and the other wanted to go down. It was pretty scary, actually. There was just an instant there where my heart stopped. I ran out of controls trying to keep that wing where it should be. I eventually turned out of it, but it was a rush.
Do you have a lot of time to map out your missions, or is it more by the seat of your pants?
No, if there's red alert, we can go with 15 minutes notice. You're given an area, you go there, and you assess the area. In our part of the country, we go and decide where to make our drop. Ninety nine per cent of the time, we're the first ones on the scene. I've had days where I've done 100 drops. I think that's why I like it so much. If you're flying with an airline, you're lucky to have five or six takeoffs and landings. I get dozens. And my routes tend to be a bit more interesting.
This is a pretty quiet fire season in the east. We often hear about water bomber pilots flying to other parts of the country to help out.
Right now it is pretty quiet here and in the other provinces near us. So we're doing training flights every three days. In the past, we've taken our planes as far west as the Northwest Territories and Saskatchewan. I've worked in Alaska, Spain, Greece and Italy during their busy fire seasons, flying their planes. I've been to Italy a number of times. I could be a tour guide in Rome.
How has the business changed in 43 years?
The pilots used to be quite transient. It's still quite seasonal, but it's more of a career now. A lot of guys will go down to the Caribbean to work in the winter. When I started, we were using Second World War aircraft with piston engines. It's much more pleasant now, we've got purpose-built aircraft, with turbine engines, some places have infrared gear for spotting hotspots. Everything has gotten bigger and better.
This interview was edited and condensed.