Finally made it to Ft. Howes

Ft. Howes is an out-station of the Miles City Field Office located on the Custer National Forest 20 miles outside of Ashland, MT. The BLM has an agreement with the USFS to suppress fires on the Custer NF. Ft. Howes is also where the helitack program was located until last year when it moved to Miles City. Today I finally had a chance to get out of Miles City and see some new country. We flew the ship down there for another A-219 course. It was a real pretty flight over wooded hills and badlands. I saw plenty of deer and antelope but no elk. The crews down at the Fort did the hover hook-ups and long line training, then the electronic release on our belly hook broke so we had to fly back to the airbase. We can still fly the ship but can't do any external loads until it gets fixed. Morale is still an issue. No fires and no overtime are a bad combination. The ship has almost been here a month and has only flown 3 times. I sure hope we get on something soon. If I was on fires I could show you some more interesting photos, but unfortunately all I've got is another hover hook-up video.