Today was the day for a visit to the LA City Fire Department. Originally I was trying to hook up with Brian Humphrey, one of the PIO’s I had met up with many years ago but this was not possible. I had however met one of the Air Operations Battalion Chiefs in Reno and he said come on out.
Time to tackle those LA freeways. My journey was to take me from Anaheim to Van Nuys which is a 2 hour journey at the best of times and today wasn’t the best but I got there eventually.
It is an interesting setup at the Van Nuys Airport. It is a little bigger than Parafield Airport but not as busy with regard to landings and takeoffs but the LA City Fire Department has 2 heavy airport tenders and crews based here in addition to their Air Operations.
LA City is slowly replacing their aging Bell fleet with an Italian made AgustaWestland aircraft. As this is the first department to use these in a fire setup, it has been a interesting and sometimes frustrating process due to the differences in expectations between the 2 parties.
It was time again to tackle the LA Freeways again – rather than do the downtown route, it was recommended to go east and then bypass the City area but this didnt make all that much difference.
