AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2010 - 70

Spotter duty

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Glen Moss, 22, and his father, Frank, were hired by Airborne Support Inc. as Douglas DC–3 captains, but only Frank ended up in that capacity. Both work for Great Southern Airways out of Punta Gorda, Florida. Glen flew as captain of a Piper Aztec (twoman crews were required) and acted as an oil spotter while his father captained a DC–3. The younger Moss flew 143 hours in the Aztec and was checked out in a Turbo Aero Commander for another nine hours of spotting.

The workday started with a briefing at 5 a.m., followed by a patrol along a grid to look for oil. Once found, he returned to the base of operations in Houma, Louisiana, to brief pilots of DC–3 aircraft that spray dispersants. The DC–3s sprayed from less than 50 feet, while Moss guided them from 1,500 feet—where he had a better view of the oil slick. He worked 70 days, with only two or three off. Did he mind it? Not at age 22, though he does admit, “It was monotonous.” —AKM

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1974 riding bareback on horses and bulls that needed anger management training. Barker and Wilson did not meet at a rodeo. Wilson was asleep in a car going from a rodeo in Miami to one in Georgia one night, and happened to wake up while the car passed through Pahokee, Florida. “That’s Howard Barker’s place,” someone said. “He used to be a bull rider. Now he’s a crop duster.” “That’s what I want to be when I quit rodeo,” Wilson said, and he went back to sleep. When he had enough of rodeo years later, he called Barker, who advised him to get a commercial pilot certificate. He did and joined Barker’s company, now located at Houma. DC–3 Capt. Sheila Mabbitt worked in Tennessee for several years and flew stranded pets—100 cages at a time—to new homes after Hurricane Katrina. She met Barker through the DC–3 Network and flew as an observer during the oil spill. She has now joined ASI. What the pilots have in common is a love of country and western music. That’s where ASI pilot and mechanic Cleatis McEntire, nicknamed Cleko, comes in. He not only likes country music, he sings it—although not for our AOPA Pilot video camera. “I sing in the airplane while I’m working,” he said. He spent most of his 160 flights in the Gulf as co-pilot of a DC–3, but ended up as a captain in both the turbine and piston-engine DC–3. He took both checkrides in one day. When the hours grew long, the heat in the aircraft climbed, and the crew grew tired, he’d sing Jambalaya (On the Bayou), or A Mansion on the Hill, both iconic Hank Williams songs. He had the right audience for it. Other aircraft The CAP and ASI weren’t the only GA aircraft flying the Gulf. They carefully
AOPA PILOT •

mingled with 600 to 800 helicopter flights a day that serve drilling operations, including those by Petroleum Helicopters Inc.; Era Helicopters; and, just for the oil spill, subcontractor Bristow Helicopters. There are also fish-spotter aircraft over the Gulf on a daily basis just below the altitude where CAP aircraft operated. At the peak on July 15, there were 150 flights for the oil spill alone, Sommer said. By mid-September that had fallen to 30, and nearly all of those were general aviation helicopters. At the peak, there were about 80 general aviation aircraft above the Gulf out of 120 aircraft operating. To be fair, ASI was not the only company spraying dispersant. The Gulf was divided up on a map according to colored sectors. Red meant civilian Lockheed C–130 firefighter aircraft were doing the spraying. Green meant the sector was served by Air Tractor singleengine sprayer aircraft. ASI patrolled the blue sector. Unusual aircraft included helicopters with grappling hooks that could pull containment booms out of the marshland when no longer needed, and high-altitude NASA remote-sensing aircraft trying to detect oil slicks at night, including a variant of the famous Lockheed U–2 spy plane. Private aircraft also added to U.S. Navy assets. Pilots interviewed seemed willing to do it all again—just not right away. A CAP pilot may have summed it up best. “If I never see another boom, it will be too soon,” said Watson, not even half-joking. His wish may go unfulfilled. As Chief Photographer Mike Fizer and I departed Gulfport, the Houma, Louisiana, command center called Rushing to ask for the same type of support the CAP provided in Mississippi and Louisiana. E-mail the author at alton.marsh@aopa. org.

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70 • NOVEMBER

2010

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AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2010

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - November 2010