We were invited by my son to visit his current workplace, the Placerville Airport. That is where the helicopter and pilot Matt works with are stationed right now, although that changes every few weeks or as fire activity changes. I wanted to describe his job and when I looked up HELCO I found Hawaiian Electric. When I added fire to the search words I read that HELCO “has frequently been associated with utility-related power line and transformer fires”. You never know what you might learn when you read my blog posts!

I finally found what I was really looking for: Matt is the Helicopter Coordinator (HLCO) who “coordinates helicopter mission(s) and incident airspace, manages incident air traffic, and is the link between ground personnel and incident aircraft. The HLCO is an airborne firefighter who coordinates, assigns, and evaluates the use of aerial resources in support of incident objectives.” In other words he is air traffic control over fires.

This is the helicopter Matt has been in lately. The dogs aren’t part of the crew, but they were extra visitors on this day. Ralston lives with Matt and Kaleena and is a qualified First Responder Therapy Dog. He has his own Instagram account @ralston.furriestresponder .

This is what Matt’s office looks like. He monitors six radio frequencies at a time as well as several different layers of maps on a screen. On this day he demonstrated the IR sensor that is used to find hot spots when in the air. On the ground we identified that the hottest spots on the dogs were their noses and mouths.

We walked across the airport to see the Sky Crane.

This is a huge helicopter. Notice the people in the foreground and fuel truck in the background for scale.

Looking up Sky Crane: “a twin-engine, heavy-lift helicopter famous for its distinctive, skeleton-like frame instead of a traditional enclosed cargo cabin…Built around a narrow central backbone for maximum strength and minimal weight.” Where ever this helicopter is stationed, the fuel truck and the maintenance trailer and truck (in the photo above this one) go with it. Three mechanics are part of the staff and one accompanies the two pilots on each flight. The water tank can carry 3000 gallons (I think).

Sign on the door of the service trailer.

A close-up view. I don’t know what to call any of this, but I was fascinated by how complicated it all is…and this is just one small part of the whole system.

We were invited inside.

There are seats for two pilots in the front and a third seat that faces backwards with a clear view of the ground to watch as while lifting or placing cargo.

Besides all the controls in front of the seats, look at what is above! Can you imagine learning to use all of this?

A family photo.

This has nothing to do with HLCO, but Matt and Kaleena took us to lunch at Tommy’s Brown Bag in Placerville. Described on-line as a “quirky sandwich shop” and a “creative sandwich shop serving unique flavor combinations and generous portions”, both of those descriptions are correct. We each ordered a sandwich and traded halves. Mine is on the left. Guess the ingredients! See below:

PB&J&B&TP&CTC&HB!!!

• PB&J
• Peanut Butter
• Strawberry Jelly
• BACON
• Toffee Peanuts
• Cinnamon Toast Crunch
• HONEY BUN!!!
• on TEXAS TOAST BRIOCHE

Believe it or not, this was a fabulous sandwich. I would order it again, except that I think I should try some of the other quirky choices!