NY Army National Guard Helicopter to conduct water bucket training Lake Ontario April 2

Training scheduled for Tuesday qualifies air crews for fighting wildfires

ROCHESTER, NY (04/01/2019) — A New York Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook helicopter and 10 crewmembers will conduct water bucket training on Lake Ontario along the eastern shoreline at Hamlin Beach State Park on Tuesday, April 2, 2019 between 10 am and 1 pm.

The helicopter crews, which are based at the Patriot Way Flight Facility in Rochester, will use specially designed aircraft buckets, known by the trademarked name of Bambi Bucket, to scoop up water from the lake and practice dropping the water on designated sites.

This allows the aircrews to practice the same techniques used to extinguish wildfires.

The crews are from Detachment 1, Company B, 3rd Battalion, 126th Aviation. They operate the CH-47F, the Army's largest helicopter. It can lift more than 30 Soldiers and carry 28,000 pounds of cargo.

Water will be scooped in a linear flightpath parallel to the shoreline at a distance of 500-1,000 feet from the shoreline. Buckets will be scooped from deep water to avoid any contact with the lake bottom.

Each year as summer begins Army National Guard helicopter crew members and maintenance personnel retrain on how to attach the buckets to helicopters and then practice picking up water and dumping it.

The training is necessary because a bucket full of water weights two tons and helicopter pilots need to practice flying with that additional weight hanging under their aircraft in order to fly safely in an emergency.

The New York Army National Guard employs helicopter firefighting equipment when requested by state officials. Most firefighting is conducted by New York State Police helicopters.

The approximate location of the training at Hamlin Beach can be viewed in Google Maps here: www.google.com/maps/place/43.38558377968084N77.94280792320374W

For more details of the flight training, or to view the training at Hamlin Beach, media are welcome to the area between 10 and 11 a.m. on Tuesday. Contact 1st Lt. John Peralta at 607-738-4457.

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