Posted by Dennis E on October 25, 2001 at 14:44:48:
I spent a weekend at a small island in the San Juans that has a private airstrip. In the little building at the strip that serves as the island's 'message box' for residents, there were a number one-page, heavy-stock handouts on how to handle an Airlift flight. These consist mostly of 'check-off' boxes to properly prepare for arrival and departure of the flight.
Frequency issue: the instructions say that preferred communications with the chopper are to be on 800 mHz State Ops 1. Fallback freq is "VHF-TAC frequency preferred - primary frequency may be too busy." In other words, an example would be Everett Fire primary of 154.385 is not preferred but instead the Fire TAC of 154.280 would be preferred if Everett Fire doesn't support State Ops 1.
The brochure also has an example of the type of comms the chopper wants to know, to wit:
"Airlift, this is (Landing Zone (LZ) command).
The landing zone is a (roadway, school, parking lot, field, etc)
surrounded by (street, trees, buildings, fences),
approximately (dimensions)
marked by (strobes, lights, flares, cones).
Obstacles and hazards in the area are (wires, light standards, radio towers, fences) to the (note in each compass direction).
Surface winds are (calm, light, variable, strong gusting) in (compass direction)
Clearest path of approach is from the (direction)."
I'm passing along just in case folks are interested.