LAFD Helicopters And Air Ops

[mattfox27]

So im sitting in glendale watching this brush fire burn with about 5 helicopters going, i got my scanner with all the lafd stuff from database programmed but i never hear the helicopters...i mean i hear command talking to them and them back to command but shouldn't the helicopters be talking to each other and the actuall crews on the ground for the water drops? I never hear anything like that. Is there more LAFD air Freq's that anyone knows of for AIR stuff? Thanks

 

[DPD1]

119.975 for LA city. County switches around. They could talk to the ground in a lot of places in something like that. It just depends on who's in charge. But for normal city stuff, it's one of the city tac channels.

 

[karldotcom]

Yes, 119.975 was active well into the night....

 

[mattfox27]

is it just the commanders that talk to the helicopters? Or do like the guys on the ground talk to them to like "drop the water here im waiving at you" something like that...also do the heli's talk to each other in the air?

 

[mattfox27]

is there like a tone setting or something cuz i wasn't getting anything on that...i was getting ch11 and 12 loud and clear but not air ops

 

[RobertW1]

is it just the commanders that talk to the helicopters? Or do like the guys on the ground talk to them to like "drop the water here im waiving at you" something like that...also do the heli's talk to each other in the air?

I too was listening to the helicopters well into the night. The helicopters talk to each other on 119.975. This is an aircraft frequency and the ground units do not use it to talk to the choppers. There is usually one chopper that coordinates the others telling them where he'd like them to concentrate, etc. This frequency is very active as the choppers MUST be in touch with each other, letting the other choppers know their location and where they are dropping, when they are "off the ground" after reloading, etc.

The chopper that sits high above the incident coordinating the drops usually will be the one that is in contact with the ground, taking drop requests from Incident command on the Command channel and then relating it to the other airships on 119.975.

 

[mattfox27]

thats wierd i wasn't getting anything on that channel...

 

[karldotcom]

I thought Fire 6 usually commanded helitac for LAFD Air Operations....but I see they added a water tank for the Getty Fire last month...I dont recall ever seeing that before...


LAFD 'Fire 6' on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Mattfox....where were you listening from? Oh, and was the frequency set to AM Mode?

 

[mattfox27]

im listening from encino...ya its set to AM its on a 396xt