MAY 13, 2025 – New York Army National Guard helicopter crews partnered May 8 with state Department of Environmental Conservation Forest Rangers to hone their firefighting skills along the Hudson River near Schuylerville.
The dozen Army aircrewmembers included Soldiers assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 142nd Aviation Regiment, flying two UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters from the Army Aviation Support Facility in Latham.
The helicopters practiced lifting water from the river and then dumping it on simulated targets. The Rangers were on board training in crew coordination and communication techniques to provide greater precision and safety in water drops.
“Just solving comms (communications) before a wildfire can make all the difference,” said Forest Ranger Michael Thomspon, who supports Hamilton County in the heart of the Adirondacks.
“Training like this gives us a head start for when it’s really needed,” he said.
During firefighting operations, the Army National Guard aircrews support Rangers on the ground and often place a Ranger in the aircraft. The team works together to guide the Army Guard pilots onto the target.
The helicopter crews and Rangers practiced dropping water from 660-gallon helicopter buckets. The collapsible buckets are slung underneath the helicopters.
Army National Guard helicopter crews conduct training every spring to qualify new pilots and refresh crews for employing the buckets and practicing water pickup and drops.
The training is necessary because a bucket full of water weighs two tons, and helicopter pilots must practice flying with that additional weight under their aircraft to fly safely in an emergency.
The training is an important first step in preparing crews for wildfires, said Capt. Alyssa Griffith, a pilot and operations officer assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 142nd Aviation’s Headquarters Company.
“The familiarization training is important because it gets you ready for the unique demands of the water bucket as an external load,” she said.
“Things like power management and crew coordination are really just the first hurdles. When you get a bucket out over a real fire, that’s when it gets interesting,” Griffith added.
The New York Army National Guard employs helicopter firefighting equipment when local agencies request support through the New York State Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Services.
New York State Police helicopters typically provide initial aerial firefighting for the state. The Army National Guard helicopters carry a bigger bucket and are used for heavier fires.
The most recent deployment was on March 8. Three UH-60M Black Hawk helicopters from Ronkonkoma worked with a New York Air National Guard HH-60W Jolly Green II rescue helicopter assigned to the 106th Rescue Wing to extinguish fires in the Long Island Pine Barrens.
Last fall, New York Army National Guard aviators dropped 550,160 gallons of water on the 5,200-acre Jennings Creek fire in Delaware County along the border with New Jersey Nov. 11-20, 2024, to bring the blaze under control.
Griffith said that experience gave her a new perspective on battling wildfires.
“We learned quickly how to maneuver among other aircraft, account for the variations in winds due to the heat of the fires and make drops where the Rangers needed them,” she said.
The familiarization training is the first step in preparing crews for aerial firefighting, building confidence and teamwork between the aircrews and Forest Rangers, said 1st Lt. David Mackey, an assistant operations officer at the Latham Aviation Support Facility
Mackey was going through the firefighting qualification training for the first time.
“It was exciting to do my first water bucket, working with a good team,” he said.
“I was expecting to struggle with my first pick, trying to hold a position over the water buckets with the moving current and spray of the water with the rotor wash,” he added.
The water bucket training was Mackey’s first time flying an external load as an aircraft pilot, and he said it had its own unique challenges.
“The most challenging for me was all the synchronization happening at the same time between the forest rangers, crew chiefs and pilots all trying to communicate where and what was going on below the aircraft,” Mackey explained.
“But that ended up being the most fun part, when everyone was synced up and we were operating as a team to accomplish the mission,” he said.
By Richard Goldenberg
New York National Guard