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Buffalo spreads its wings some more
Northern airline certified to fight oil spills

Daron Letts
Northern News Services
Published Monday, October 24, 2011

SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Crew members aboard a Buffalo Airways DC3 chemical bomber are helping clean up residue from the 2010 BP oil spill along Florida's Gulf Coast this month.

NNSL photo/graphic

Buffalo Airways owner, 'Buffalo' Joe McBryan, is fitting this Cessna 310 aircraft with an infrared camera, which can be used for search and rescue and to monitor pollution. - Daron Letts/NNSL photo

Company owner "Buffalo" Joe McBryan plans to introduce his new hazard-spill recovery and monitoring technology and expertise to government and industry representatives in the North this winter.

McBryan returned home from the Gulf last week, where his team earned aerial mobilization certification from the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), allowing Buffalo Airways to spray dispersants on oil spills in that country. Crew have also been trained to use infrared pollution monitoring equipment.

"We have chemicals that are sprayed out of the airplane on the tail booms that'll either disperse it, sink it, or clump it together like kitty litter and the coast guard can go in and collect it with nets," McBryan said. "With that infrared camera, I can patrol that pipeline from Norman Wells all the way into Alberta on a video or CD with a GPS readout and at the end of the day, I can store the data to the company or the government or whoever is interested as to exactly what is on that pipeline (to detect) if there's any leaks."

McBryan is adapting two of his four DC4 aircraft for chemical spraying. The airline has another two DC4s and four Lockheed Electrics that could be adapted for spraying if demand warrants. The DC4, with its 2,000-gallon tank, is the aircraft of choice for dispersant spraying in the U.S. for reliability, size, and speed. In the U.K., the Lockheed Electrics are favoured. McBryan has observed cleanups in both countries several times over the last decade.

He is equipping two of his Cessna 310 aircraft with a Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) camera. The camera can be used for pollution monitoring as well as search and rescue.

Avionics technician David Chernekoff began installing the first FLIR camera onto the nose of one of the Cessnas earlier this week.

The infrared lens is housed in a vacuum-cooled, basketball-sized sphere that can pivot in almost any direction.

"The FLIR camera senses differences in temperature rather than heat itself," Chernekoff explained.

Grayscale gradients scanned onto a screen in the cockpit depict the temperature variants on the ground.

"It's a talent to be able to read that screen because you've got to be able to tell if you're looking at a moose with hair full of snow or a kid lost in the bush," McBryan said.

"Anything that hits the water has a different temperature. I can follow a ship and catch a guy pissing overboard and yell at him because we have a loud hailer on the airplane. That's how sensitive they are."

McBryan is preparing to have his hazard spill recovery and monitoring team operating in the North next summer. He will speak with industry and government officials about his new capacity this winter.

"With the equipment I have purchased, a million dollars went by a long time ago. I've asked for no government commitments except support," McBryan said. "If I'm protecting and cleaning up from the industry, the industry should cover the cost. It should be in their contingency plan, just like they have Band-Aids, and ambulances and firetrucks on their site, they should have a pollution control airplane."

If McBryan does not find interest in the NWT, he plans to secure contracts in Alberta.

Kevin Todd, director of economic development with the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, said his staff would be interested to learn more about McBryan's goals.

"It could warrant a conversation with one of our economic development officers to see whether there is some way our programs could assist," Todd said. "ITI has programs that may be of assistance in a case like this if they need to go to a trade show and show the technology. I think there are a number of ways we could look at helping them if they needed some assistance marketing their technology or services."

Todd points to past examples where southern technologies have found useful applications in the North, such as ice road technology, dike design at the mines, and various approaches to architecture.

"We really encourage companies to be innovative and this sounds like an interesting technology," Todd said. "They've developed a bit of a niche and an expertise and you have to applaud that (McBryan) is looking at different areas he can use it and how to apply it here. From the North's standpoint, a lot of our technology is applied from somewhere else and we've been able to take innovations from elsewhere and use them in a Northern context."

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