The firefighters

This chapter tells how the first operational air tanker was built at Willows in 1955, and how local pilots and the Forest Service grew the idea into the Mendocino Air Tanker Squad.

From a crop duster to a squadron

Spring 1955

Joe Ely, fire control officer for the Mendocino National Forest, gets permission from the Forest Supervisor to try dropping water on fires from an airplane.

July 1955

Ely asks Floyd “Speed” Nolta of Willows Flying Service, who had flown agricultural work since the 1920s, whether he could drop water on a forest fire. Floyd asks for a week. A week later he has cut a hole in the belly of a Stearman biplane, fitted a hinged gate with a pull rope, and filled it with water.

July 23, 1955

Floyd and Al Edwards light the dry grass along the Nolta airstrip. Floyd’s brother Vance Nolta flies over low, pulls the rope, and puts the fire out.

August 12, 1955

Vance Nolta flies the airplane to the Mendenhall Fire on the Mendocino National Forest and makes the first free-fall drop on a wildfire. The aircraft is N75081, a Boeing Stearman Cadet with a 170-gallon tank. Some accounts give the date as August 13. Rangers reported that the drops helped knock down hot spots.

1956

Seven agricultural aircraft, the original Stearman and six Navy N3N biplanes, form the first operational air tanker squadron in the United States. Local pilots fly it from the Willows airport, and it goes out on twelve fires in its first month.

1957

The squad is working fires all over California for the Forest Service and the state forestry department. More planes and pilots join.

1959

Heavy air tankers carrying 2,000 gallons of retardant are in service.

The first crew

Fire control officer

Joe Ely, Mendocino National Forest.

Air attack pilot

Lee Sherwood flew the “bird dog,” a Piper Tri-Pacer that carried a Forest Service officer to direct the tankers and coordinate with crews on the ground.

Air tanker pilots

The eight original pilots, listed below.

The eight original pilots

These eight men formed the Mendocino Air Tanker Squad in 1956, flying the modified Stearman and the Navy N3N biplanes.

Floyd “Speed” Nolta
Willows

Agricultural aviation pioneer who modified the Stearman that launched the first operational air tanker program.

Vance Nolta
Willows

Flew the experimental Stearman in the 1955 demonstration and made the first wildfire water drops.

Dale Nolta
Willows

Floyd and Vance’s brother and a fellow agricultural pilot in the original squad.

Harold Hendrickson
Willows

An early tanker pilot whose aircraft became part of the squad’s biplane fleet.

Frank Prentice
Willows

One of the original local agricultural pilots who helped establish the program.

Ray Varney
Artois, Glenn County

Flew one of the Navy N3N biplane tankers.

L. H. “Mac” McCurley
Corning

An agricultural pilot who flew from the Corning area.

Warren Bullock
Red Bluff

One of the original pilots, flying from the Red Bluff area.

Lee Sherwood was also central to the program, in a different role. He flew the “bird dog” observation airplane with a Forest Service officer aboard, directing the tankers and coordinating drops with the ground crews. He is honored alongside the original pilots on the Birth of the Airtanker Program plaque at the Willows airport.

A group photograph in the airport’s National Register nomination (Figure 12) shows the original pilots in front of their aircraft at Lake Elsinore in 1956. From left to right: Dale Nolta, Warren Bullock, Floyd Nolta, Harold Hendrickson, Mac McCurley, Ray Varney, Frank Prentice, and Vance Nolta. You can find it in the nomination document, attached to the City of Willows agenda for April 6, 2023.

Learning as they went

The first drops used plain water, and on a hot, dry day a 100-gallon drop from 50 feet could evaporate before it landed. The fix was to mix chemicals into the water. The first was sodium calcium borate, which gave the planes their nickname, borate bombers. Bentonite came next, then Firetrol, which worked best.

Mixing was the next problem. Wim Lely, an inventor in Orland, built a machine that could mix about a thousand gallons and pump it into a large airplane in a couple of minutes. Joe Ely later said the program might have fizzled without him.

Working with the ground

Fire agencies across California could order a tanker by calling Willows 80, where dispatcher Charlie Lafferty took the calls. Communication started out rough. On one dispatch to the Six Rivers National Forest, ground crews gave the pilots a fire map divided into three zones and held up a card with a letter to show where to drop. Radios in the planes came later.

The pilots also pushed back on the Forest Service rule to stay 75 feet above the treetops. They preferred five.

Then and now

Larger planes soon followed, including PBYs and F7Fs. Ely noted that a thousand gallons is ten times better than a hundred, but he gave the credit to the eight original pilots and their seven small planes. Today single engine air tankers and large air tankers are a staple of wildland firefighting. The single engine tankers carry up to 800 gallons, and the largest up to 3,000.

A plaque marking the Birth of the Airtanker Program stands at the Willows Airport. It honors Joe Ely, Lee Sherwood, and the eight original pilots.

Drawn from the Mendocino National Forest lessons-learned summary, the text of the plaque, the Willows–Glenn County Airport National Register nomination, and Joe Ely’s 1981 account, “How It Was,” as shared on the Early Aviators website.