MESA, Ariz. — Usually, pilots try to avoid landing belly-first in the water.
Not Scott Blue. He's trained to do it upwards of 90 times a day.
Blue pilots a CL-415 Super Scooper, a two-engine plane with its wings across the top of the fuselage with two doors along the boat-shaped bottom of the plane. Those doors, and the shape of the bottom, are there for a specific reason.
"I guess it's a matter of getting used to it, you know, you're closer to the ground," Blue said. "And of course, once we get the water we climb up to a safe altitude."
The Super Scooper is a fire fighting aircraft that descends to lakes and (deep) rivers, sucks up water into onboard tanks, then flies to the nearby wildfire and drops the water on the flames.
"And then go back to the lake and repeat, repeat, repeat," Blue said.
Blue said his record is 99 water bombing runs in eight hours.
The Super Scooper has been based out of Mesa-Gateway Airport for the last few weeks, training and getting qualified for fire season, which they have now completed. Blue and his team haven't been dispatched to any of Arizona's wildfires yet, but Blue said they're ready when they get the call.
Fire managers at regional coordination centers keep track of firefighting resources and delegate them based on needs across the country.
For Blue, flying the Super Scooper is the culmination of many years of training, starting when he first saw one of the red and yellow-painted aircraft in a hangar.
"I always said to myself, if there's anything I can fly, I want to fly that," Blue said.
Eventually, he got his wish. Now, he flies "Lewis," the Super Scooper currently parked in Mesa.
"I do have a bit of a check once in a while realizing how lucky I am to have this job," Blue said.
VERSIÓN EN ESPAÑOL: Piloto del 'Super Scooper' vuela para combatir incendios forestales en Arizona desde el aire
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