I was a contract pilot for the USFS and the State of Alaska for wild land fire suppression activities.

It was a highly dangerous job. All you heard about all summer was plane crashes. The pay was good and they treated pilots well but the job was inherently dangerous and highly fun.

I would spend weeks stuck at some miserable base in the middle of nowhere doing absolutely nothing then told to depart within 15 minutes for a destination that was maybe 2600 miles away. It did not matter what the weather was like or what you were carrying you just left and made it happen somehow.

You had no support. No mechanics. No bosses and few to zero co-workers. Training was scant. The equipment did not work right. The avionics were parched together junk. You were always moving to a new location.

Many of the planes that I flew have been crashed since. A few of my best friends in the profession are dead now from it. Most of the time it takes a lot of the right type of flying experience to get the job and to then be able to survive it.

I had bush piloting experience and that really helped. I took a job after a guy with 10,000 hours was fired because he could not get comfortable with the job. His whole career was spent in the IFR, long runway environment. Low and slow off dirt and gravel runways with a twin blew his mind.

SkyHigh