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said. “We do two of the four phases of inspection so that we can try to get ahead of the maintenance and not have a bunch of downtime right in the middle of fire season.”
Prior to the first B200 purchase, BLM had contracted King Air U-21, E-21 and C90 models.
“We’ve used the King Air 90s and 200s for probably more than 20 years, and it’s a proven platform for us,” Bell said. “The King Air is a very capable and pilot-friendly aircraft, which is important when you’re flying at a lower level in mountainous terrain. The B200 is just fantastic. It’s faster and the endurance is just huge, it’s like six hours of fuel. We don’t tend to use that, we try to limit our missions to three to four hours.”
U.S. Forest Service
The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) manages and protects 154 national forests and 20 grasslands in 43 states
The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service have started to combine the lead plane and air tactical group supervisor missions into one aircraft, called an aerial supervision module. The agencies conducted aerial supervision module training flights, shown here, this spring in Mesa, Arizona.
APRIL 2017
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 7