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The local National Guard unit finds itself trying to strike a balance between fighting brush fires and preparing for combat.
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN
© St. Petersburg Times, published June 3, 2001
Wind whipped through the windows as the Black Hawk helicopter approached Hernando County at 3,000 feet.
Gusts buffeted the chopper, but Chief Warrant Officer II Joseph Langlois, a member of Hernando County's new Florida National Guard helicopter unit, kept it on course through blue skies, curtains of rain falling in the distance.
Suddenly, a book fell behind him. Langlois turned around in his seat. The helicopter pitched forward and banked to the left.
"Son of a . . . ," Langlois said into his headset, catching himself before he cursed. "Excuse my French."
He grabbed the levers and looked down at his instruments. A metal hood attached to the front of his helmet prevented him from looking out the windows.
Slowly, the helicopter's nose rose, and the Black Hawk flew parallel to the ground again.
Langlois didn't need visual cues to right the aircraft. In fact, he wouldn't have passed this test had he used them.
The dip in the helicopter was a stunt on the part of his evaluator, Chief Warrant Officer III David Smith, who sat in the co-pilot's seat. Smith distracted Langlois with the book, then threw the helicopter forward to see how he would react to correct the situation using his aviation instruments.
Langlois made the entire 2 1/2-hour flight from Hernando County to Lakeland and back using only charts, a compass, air speed, altitude readings and other instruments to guide him.
"There's a big difference under the hood than the usual visual clues," Langlois, a full-time test and maintenance pilot, said once back on the ground at the Hernando County Airport.
"If you have to do without visuals in a real situation, all you would have seen are clouds," said Sgt. Mark Bradley, the crew chief on Langlois' flight.
Langlois' annual recertification test and his colleagues' ongoing training are but two of the many tasks assigned to the 171st Aviation Battalion of the Florida National Guard, which relocated to Hernando County from Lakeland in late March.
Lately, the unit has had to juggle its duties, trying to strike a balance between its state missions, such as fighting brush fires for the Florida Department of Forestry, and its federal missions, which include preparing for combat.
"We do a lot more disaster relief like the firefighting mission, but we do have to keep up Army standards to go where they need us," Bradley said.
The guard unit, which has eight Black Hawks stationed in a new 44,000-square-foot, $7-million hangar at the Hernando airport, has been swamped with firefighting calls since its move two months ago.
The unit -- the only agency using Black Hawks to fight fires in Florida -- has spent an average of 25 to 30 hours a week responding to brush fires with its 780-gallon bucket, which holds a mixture of water and fire-retardant solution, Smith said.
In May, the unit spent 60 hours in one week alone fighting the Mallory Swamp fire in Lafayette and Dixie counties, Lt. Paul Daniel said.
It was called off the state fire missions the past two weeks so members could prepare for annual federal combat training at Camp Blanding near Jacksonville. The federal training prepares the unit to launch into war with aviation support, including carrying troops, equipment and supplies.
In addition to the Black Hawks, the National Guard unit was supposed to have two C-23 Sherpa cargo planes stationed in a separate hangar at the airport to help with troop-carrying duties. But construction of the hangar was postponed after a fatal crash in March of one of the unit's twin-engine planes in Georgia. The crash killed three members of the battalion and 18 members of the Virginia Air National Guard.
The remaining plane is still based in Lakeland, and its future is uncertain. The National Guard might replace the Sherpas with more advanced cargo jets, but Daniel does not know when. He also hopes his unit in the next year will receive a Fire Hawk helicopter, a Black Hawk equipped with a 1,000-gallon tank and a snorkel.
What is certain is that the pace for the unit will not slow down anytime soon. Even before moving to Hernando County, the unit had been busy since January fighting brush fires. With the state's ongoing drought, the season starts earlier every year, members said.
At the same time, members of the unit must keep up with federal training, including drills one weekend a month with both part-time and full-time members related to their aviation specialty. Night-vision flights take place two evenings a week.
Also, the unit periodically assists other National Guard units throughout the state with parachute jumps.
"It's hard from the perspective that we have two different missions," said Daniel, who flew three times to Bosnia and once to Iraq with the U.S. Army. "We just don't set one aside to do the other. When we're out there fighting fires, we have to maintain our different modes of flight for our federal mission."
Those tasks are made more difficult because the Black Hawk unit is currently short-staffed.
Because of retirements and a lack of funding to fill vacant positions, the Black Hawk unit has 14 open slots, Daniel said. Right now, there are 36 full-time members in the helicopter unit and 12 part-time members who train one weekend a month.
"We're ending up having to do a lot of additional duties you wouldn't have to," Daniel said. "You have a lot of the same individuals day in and day out having to fly on the fires."
Daniel has worked some days from 7:30 a.m. to midnight, meaning he misses time with his wife and four children.
"When you don't have the people you're funded for, people have to put more time in and more time away from their family," he said.
Another problem is that, because of the fast pace of the last few months, only about 60 percent of the unit has had time to move. That means a lot of travel time between Hernando County and Lakeland for some unit members.
One problem that some feared, but that has not cropped up, is complaints from the public about noise from the helicopters.
Airport officials and the Hernando County Sheriff's Office said they are not aware of any noise complaints since the unit arrived.
In fact, Daniel said, the public has warmly welcomed the unit to Hernando.
"You wouldn't believe how many visits we get from retired veterans," he said. "People that have served in Vietnam or World War II come in, and we give them a tour. There's a lot of patriotism here."