When Grass Valley air tanker pilot Abbie Crews was in the fourth grade, she got her first glimpse into the aviation world she would want to become a part of after seeing the U.S. Air Force’s demonstration squadron of F-16 fighter jets — the Thunderbirds.

“That’s kind of what got me the aviation bug,” Crews said.

The Alaska native, who already earned her private pilot’s license in high school, decided to join the U.S. Air Force to fly in its academy and has been flying professionally since 2008.

But when Crews moved to Nevada City after getting out of the Air Force in 2015, she had very little knowledge about the state’s firefighting efforts or its need for tanker pilots until she met some of them herself.

“I was doing some corporate charter and applying for the airlines,” Crews said.

“I wasn’t originally a California native, so I didn’t fully know about Cal Fire, but I was neighbors with the previous lead pilot and my very good friend in town was the fire chief of the Tahoe National Forest and knew all the pilots at the Grass Valley Base.”

It wasn’t long after before she was introduced to some of the local base’s pilots.

“The pilots I met here at Grass Valley made me aware of the job and how awesome it was and got me super interested in it,” Crews said of her job.

Crews applied herself to the challenge and was officially signed on to Cal Fire in 2017, joining a small, but growing, number of women who use aircraft for firefighting efforts in the state.

“Anuk LeBris is the only other one and she is out of Paso Robles,” Crews said of other Cal Fire air tanker pilots.

“She got signed on maybe 17 years ago? So i’m the only female pilot since her. She is still flying and she might be retiring in the next few years.”

Crews mentioned that there is one other retardant-dropping female, Dawn Bloomberg, who flies a Coulson C-130; as well as four female OV-10 Cal Fire air attack pilots, and a few female helicopter and scooper pilots.

“About 4 to 5% of professional pilots in all of aviation are female, so it’s basically just a microcosm of the rest of the aviation industry,” Crews said.

And that’s one number she wants to see increase.

“The guys are all great, but it would be pretty fun to have other women to hang out with and fly with,” Crews said with a laugh.

“In the aviation industry there is going to be a huge pilot shortage coming up, so we kind of need all of the human capital we can get to fill that. Fifty percent of the population is women and that will be a good talent source,” Crews said, mentioning that there are efforts from airlines in recruiting female pilots.

Crews feels that girls need to see other girls in these types of traditionally male-dominated careers to help break that cycle.

“Most little girls have women idols and women heroes and if they don’t see the females that they look up to doing those types of things, they won’t necessarily think to do it themselves. I think that under-representation begets under-representation.”

“I personally think it is one of the most task-saturated, intense and demanding flying jobs there is because the situation is always different and it is very dynamic,” Crews said.

“It is very technical, but the actual drop itself is not guided by any real technology other than the tank system that allows the retardant to come out. It is all our experience and judgment.”

And the job is inherently dangerous.

“It is a really dangerous job, our training program at Cal Fire is really good and it has improved greatly over the years,” Crews said.

“We have gained more experience with lessons learned and I think that it is getting much more safer and our aircraft are designed really well for it.”

Grass Valley’s two S-2T air tankers 88 and 89 are sister aircraft that were once stationed onboard the USS Nimitz and were designed to sink submarines with a single onboard torpedo back in the 1960s.

After being given to the state, they have since been upgraded time and time again, ditching the old reciprocating engines for Garrett turboprop jet engines that make the aircraft much more forgiving if there are potential pilot mistakes.

“So a combination of really good training and improvements to the aircraft have brought the accident rate down significantly. But it still is pretty dangerous because there are so many factors that you are analyzing really fast and you are close to the ground and you are traveling fast at 120 knots generally.”

Crews describes dropping retardant like learning how to throw basketball free throws.

“You’re literally throwing the retardant from the plane onto the fire where you want it to go and there are a million different variables. There are obstacles and terrain that we have to think about when we’re descending down into our drop and how we’re gong to exit the drop.

“We drop the retardant at 150 feet, usually above the vegetation, so you’re really low so the shape of the terrain dictates how you approach it and how you exit it. Things like the wind and the slope change how the retardant travels, so you have to calculate all those things in your head to know when and where to push the button.

“The aviation industry is going to be very lucrative in the next five to 10 years just because we’re going to be in such a high demand, so specifically flying fire weather for Cal Fire or one of the contract tankers like Coulson or Erickson or Neptune is that they’re very dynamic, fun type of flying.”

Crews describes that flying air tankers is much different than flying other types of commercial aviation.

“You’re actually flying the plane and it’s almost like you’re wearing the aircraft and it’s like an extension of your body. So it’s the most hands-on flying that you’ll probably ever do and then it also has the satisfaction of protecting your community.”

“Especially when I’m here in Grass Valley, every time I go to a fire, I’m thinking, ‘Oh this could be one of the fires that burns the town down or something,’ so we have a very strong desire to get there fast and get it out because we really feel like we’re protecting our community.”

“I think that’s the best part about the job,” Crews said.

To contact Multimedia Reporter Elias Funez, email efunez@theunion.com or call 530-477-4230

When Grass Valley air tanker pilot Abbie Crews was in the fourth grade, she got her first glimpse into the aviation world she would want to become a part of after seeing the U.S. Air…

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