Sport Pilot Talk

I went up yesterday afternoon, mainly to make sure cleaning the terminals on my voltage regulator had worked - good news is it apparently has for now.

Since I was up, I flew over to where some wildfires are nearby - just west of Blue Ridge, GA. There are wildfires all over E TN and W NC as well - we have not had a substantial rain in ages and things are dry as a bone:



The TFR for firefighting just went up to 6,800' msl, so I thought an overflight at 7,500' would be kosher.



View to the west shortly after taking off from Copperhill:



Approaching from the NW:



From 7,500':



Looking west towards Chattanooga, more fires over there:



For those familiar with the area, that's US64 running along Parksville Lake on the left.

In the photo, you might make out a small column of smoke on the ridge. Here's a better view:



After landing, I called the fire dispatcher and advised them of its location.

Anyway, a beautiful flight and now we just need some rain - desperately!

Great pics, it is a mess out there. Did you happen to see any of the firefighting aircraft at work?

hirschr wrote:Great pics, it is a mess out there. Did you happen to see any of the firefighting aircraft at work?

I looked and looked, but saw nary a one.

Some friends have posted photos on Facebook of helicopters scooping water out of nearby lakes, so apparently some efforts have been/are being made in that direction.

As an aside, those photos were taken with my iPhone 6+, which I think is pretty amazing by itself. All except the cockpit shot were taken through the vent window, so no plexiglas in the way.

Smoke is affecting us over in SC.

Strangely most of the airfield AWOS recordings don't mention it and report good viz and clear skies and thats how it looks. Once airborne the viz is much lower and isn't reflected in AWOS etc perhaps because it's not able to read it?

Be aware of TFRs for the firefighting airplanes too.

At first I thought maybe it was one of the states that just legalized marijuana....

No rain in the Carolinas for a long while and the ground is ripe for fires.

767 - I agree on the visability comment. My wife and I flew from Collegedale to Sweetwater Saturday the airports on the route reported VFR but it was marginal at times. This was our view:

That's a heck on an inversion layer on Eddie's pics. I did some wildlife fire work in college and undergrad and still deal with it from the private industry end. Be careful flying through that stuff, it's not good for engines or your lungs. Also if it's a large enough fire the updrafts in the plume and wind around the leading edge of the fire can get downright scary on the ground, I'd hate to fly through it.
I hope things improve in your area, it's pretty dry over here in Louisiana as well, burn bans are in effect and I still had to remind a neighbor not to burn his leaves. I'd prefer not to have to break out the NOMEX this year....