New Books this week

I received two new books this week.

Fire Bombers in Action by Fred Johnsen. This is the first book about air tankers to come out in a long time. Also Mr. Johnson is the current leader of the museum at Edwards AFB. In addition to the book a DVD is also included with videos compiled by Mr. Johnson. The book brought back a lot of memories for me as I worked for Hunot Retardant at Fox Air Tanker base during the late 1980's. I think it is the best book on air-tankers so far. The video is good especially the old 1959 training film from the Forest Service on using air-tankers and the interview with the mars flying boat pilot is also good.

American X&Y Planes: Volume 2: Experimental Aircraft since 1945 by Ken Darling. This book is the second volume in a series that covers American prototype aircraft. The first book covered aircraft prior to 1945. The editing is good but the book suffers from some editing issues. I found the XB-55 twice in the book, I think the first time the XB-55 was listed it should have said XB-47.

Single Engine Air Tanker Crash in Nevada

I posted a link to Inciweb. An excerpt from that page is: "Dave Jamsa as the pilot who was killed yesterday after his single-engine air tanker (SEAT) crashed while flying fire suppression operations on the Hoyt Fire."

The Hoyt fire website on Inciweb is here. And this test is from that page "Six SEATs (Single Engine Air Tanker)were working the fire from the Battle Mountain Air Tanker Base when the crash of Tanker 857 occurred. The pilot was flown by helicopter to medical facilities in Lovelock, Nevada, where he was pronounced dead. NTSB/FAA investigators are on-scene to interview personnel and proceed with their investigation into the SEAT crash."