NY Army National Guard Helicopter to conduct water bucket training over Lake Ontario May 5-6

Training scheduled this week qualifies air crews for fighting wildfires

ROCHESTER, N.Y. (05/04/2020) — A New York Army National Guard CH-47 Chinook and about 20 crewmembers will conduct water bucket training on Lake Ontario along the eastern shoreline at Hamlin Beach State Park on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 5-6, 2020 between 10 am and 1 pm each day.

The helicopter crews, based at the Patriot Way Flight Facility in Rochester, will use specially designed aircraft buckets 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 Chinook 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.

The buckets used for the Chinook helicopter is capable of delivering 2,000 gallons of water, weighing about eight tons when full.

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 helicopter pilots need to practice flying with that additional weight of the full water bucket 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. each day.

Contact Chinook pilots 1st Lt. Jeff Tampe, 716-969-7300 for media coverage on scene on Tuesday or Capt. Jessica Persoon, 607-592-0466 for media interviews on scene on Wednesday.

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