OSHKOSH Wis. — Jeremy Harmon always wanted to fly the De Havilland Beaver.
It’s now his workplace in the sky with the U.S. Forest Service.
“For me, it’s the missions I’ve wanted to fly, the backcountry-type flying and it’s the equipment I want to fly,” said Harmon who has been a pilot with the service for the past year-and-a-half. “The De Havilland Beaver has been my favorite airplane since I was a little kid. It just doesn’t get any better than this.”
Harmon, who grew up in Maine and is now based in Ely, Minn.
“We do a little bit of everything. We do fire detection, fire suppression and firefighter transport as our primary missions,” he said. “Outside of that, the list is almost endless as to what we can do with the aircraft. We do aerial tree seeding. We do fish stocking. We do search and rescue and medevacs in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. We also do wildlife telemetry surveys looking for collared animals.”
The U.S. Forest Service is one of several federal agencies that operate aircraft as part of their mission.
Several — including the Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Forest Service — are at EAA AirVenture in Oshkosh this week highlighting their aircrafts, flight crews and careers.
Nick Hough is a regional aviation officer with the forest service based out of southeast Wisconsin.
“I think the public is sometimes pretty shocked with how large we become during the fire season and really what we do for the national forest that we support,” he said.
Hough said the forest service in the region operates everything from firefighting tankers to helicopters and unmanned aerial systems.
“The forest service in hiring people; we’re getting folks from a lot of diverse backgrounds,” he said. “DoD, the private sector and the forest service itself — interior agencies as they grow their aviation acumen and training.”
The Beavers Harmon flies are more than 60-years-old. He said they’re still well-tailored for the jobs at hand.
“It will take off with just about anything you can fit in it,” he said. “We absolutely love it. It’s a pickup truck.”