By Senior ANN Correspondent Kevin O'Brien

Jeff Riechmann (Rick-mann) has been involved in airport safety for all his adult life. As a young airman, he was a crash-crew fireman at Edwards Air Force Base; after his honorable discharge, he went to work for Kern County as a firefighter, while staying active in the Air Force Reserve. Retired now from the military, he still is a firefighter for the county -- but he's a very special firefighter, with responsibility for all of the county's aviation programs.

"Basically, if it's got wings, I deal with it," Jeff says. He's a big, tall guy, who speaks softly but clearly and without hesitation or uncertainty. It's eequally easy to imagine him at the scene of a fire -- or at the lectern in a classroom.

Jeff had a hearing problem which forced the county to take him off regular firefighting duties. Fortunately for the county, at that very moment they were looking for someone to handle aviation-related fire training and compliance issues. The right man fell into the right job.

Preparing for SpaceShipOne

Many of Kern County's firefighters -- not just the ones that respond to Mojave Spaceport, as the field the aviation world knows as Mojave is formally known -- have had special training for SpaceShipOne.

"Most of it is classroom training in this case, not hands-on," Jeff told me.

For the SpaceShipOne flights themselves, Jeff said, "we're bringing in additional crews. Their responsibility is to the public. We're primarily here to take care of the people that are watching this. However, because of the training we've put 'em through -- special, specific SpaceShipOne training -- they're capable to go out and support the airport crew, if it's needed.

The firefighters have been trained on the HAZMAT aspects of any SpaceShipOne mishap, as well as on rescue aspects.

"They have rescue training -- we have a video where we show 'em how to get into SpaceShipOne -- and everything that they need to know. We bring our helicopter out, helicopter 408... if there should be an event with SpaceShipOne off the airport, one of our engine crews is ready to get on the helicopter and fly out and do whatever is needed to resolve that situation, off the airport."

"That's all done through the training that we've put together." The crews at Mojave, Boron, Rosemond have been put through SpaceShipOne training, "so they can augment any of the other crews. We put 'em through a pretty good training program."

The SpaceShipOne specific training is mostly classroom training. "Obviously we don't get a lot of hands-on with something as unique and secretive as this," Jeff told Aero-News.

Is the problem maintaining secrecy? Jeff shook his head.

"Our guys are pretty good about keeping quiet, but the problem is getting to the aircraft. You know, they're doing work, they're doing maintenance, and we can't really get in their way. And we understand and appreciate that."

So a video of the SpaceShipOne access procedures is used as a next-best-alternative because Mojave Aerospace Ventures and Scaled Composites can't make the single spacecraft available to all 500 county firefighters.

Do the people working on the SpaceShip -- and the guys who are going to be in it -- appreciate what the firefighters are doing?

"I'll tell you, Scaled Composites has rolled out the red carpet for us. Anything we've asked for, they've bent over backwards to help us. They've just been super. Super people."

Helicopter 408

Helicopter 408 is an integral part of Kern County's emergency services. Like Jeff Riechmann, it's retired military: a UH-1H which has been upgraded to SuperHuey status. "It has a beefier engine, beefier driveline."

Other Responsibilities

Apart from SpaceShipOne-specific fire and rescue training, then, what does Jeff Riechmann do?

"Basicially, aviation-oriented training. I'm teaching all the firefighters in the stations things like, how do you get into a 747 passenger plane? How do you deal with an ejection seat on a fighter?

How do you drive around the airport without running into an airplane? We teach them how to plan... what to do after the plane crashes... all this kind of stuff. Like I said, we're trying to put all 500 people through that training."

"The hands-on training involves... well, at Mojave we use their CV-990 for training. At the other remote stations, that don't really have an airport, we use our fire department helicopter, or we use an air ambulance. At Meadows Field we have a T-38 that we use."

"Part of the training [required] is that they have to get hands-on training. And we really push for that, because, you just can't sit in class and see how a door handle works."

The old service thing: "if I see, I forget, if I do, I remember?"

"That's it exactly. So it's pretty intense training. It's good training."

"Now, in addition to training our firemen, I keep track of the helicopter. And I keep track of all their training, everything they do, including flight safety training for the crew. We also have an AeroCommander, so I also track their flight safety training."

"So the idea is, if there's ever a problem, if the FAA says what kind of training have these guys done, I've got it all down, and I can show them."

Naturally, there is an FAA regulation that covers firefighter training. Right, Jeff?

"Right. Part 139.319 governs the minimum standards for firefighters responding to an alarm at a certificated airport.  For us it just applies to Bakersfield and Inyokern. But, what we've done is, we're trying to bring every firefighter in the Kern County Fire Department up to that level. We're talking about 500 firefighters."

Is this common?

"That's really unique in the United States."

The Kern County fire department has two airports, Bakersfield and Inyokern (Mojave) where they back up the airport firefighters. But they have fire stations scattered all over the sprawling county, and training all firefighters in aircraft-related fire and rescue tasks enhances personnel flexibility.

"The guys like it," Riechmann told us. I promised the guys in the field that I would make this, if they put me in charge of this -- which is really unique cause I'm at the bottom of the totem pole -- that I would try to make it fun and interesting. And so this is where I bring aircraft in and we try and do different things. In December, we're looking at working with one of the companies on Mojave that scraps airplanes. We asked a question, 'Can't we scrap an airplane for ya?'
And so we're looking at bringing our crews out to get some practice using their rescue tools."

Te Kern County firemen travel to Edwards Air Force Base for live fire training on the USAF's airplane mockups, and in return we provide them with some of their emergency medical training. We're getting involved with them on some Space Shuttle issues."

Once a month, Riechmann and the Edwards firefighters meet for contingency planning. The Edwards and Kern County firefighters get along well. It's hardly surpriaing: four firefighters on duty at Mojave Sept, 29, on the X-1 flight of SpaceShipOne, had worked the Space Shuttle during landings at Edwards also.

Exercises Prove The System Works

Every three years the FAA requires a full-dress rehearsal or exercise of the emergency response system. Riechmann has been invited to Santa Barbara to be an evaluator for their next one -- coming next Wednesday.

These drills are not a trivial thing to organize. "You have to have all the ambulance companies, a lot of times they'll set something on fire, a lot of times they'll have a schoolbous wit a bunch of kids dressed up with simulated injuries," he told Aero-News. "A lot of times they'll go so far as to transport the 'casualties' to he hospital, just as part of the drill."

Let's Give the Last Word to Jeff

"What I tell the guys when I do the training is that when you work ARF (Aircraft Rescue Firefighting) is that most of your calls are nothing. But when you get a call, you're usually on CNN."

FMI: www.mojaveairport.com