Good to the last drop

Chief water bomber pilot Jean-Pierre Guay is retiring from a 32-year career flying the unique plane that skims over lakes and the ocean to load water and then sprays it over flaming hillsides.

He returns to snowy Quebec on Wednesday after a ceremony at which county supervisors will thank him for his service.

Guay, 62, said he will miss L.A.'s sunny and warm autumns. But he won't miss darting in and out of narrow, heavily populated canyons as Santa Ana winds shake and rattle the sturdily built Canadair Bombardier CL-415.

Los Angeles County leases two $35-million Super Scoopers from the province of Quebec during each fall's windy fire season. The $3-million lease can be extended if the fire danger lingers beyond Christmas.

Eight pilots and three mechanics come with the planes. They stay in a Burbank Holiday Inn.

The sight of the two tankers, which are painted a bright yellow and red and feature distinctive pontoons on their wings, invariably draw cheers from those whose homes are in the path of brush fires.

But the erratic winds that make Los Angeles fires so dangerous make flying a heavily loaded fixed-wing plane difficult.

"Sometimes the aircraft is going like this," Guay said, moving the palms of his hands up and down.

"The controls are pretty stiff -- they don't want us to make any abrupt maneuvers. In the wind, the pilots are going like this," he said, moving his fists up and down. "You have to be pretty strong to control it."

Super Scooper pilots scope out the terrain before lining up in tandem to make their water drops. High-tension power lines and ridge-top trees have to be avoided. So do direct water hits on structures or people.

"Southern California is very different from Quebec," Guay said. "Up there, we fight fires in forests a long way away from homes. Here, we're dumping water in urban areas - sometimes in the courtyards of houses."

"In a Laurel Canyon fire, we were flying below some houses. We looked up on the hill and people were waving to us. They were happy to see us. We were close enough we could tell whether they were men or women."

Some of the 12 approved pickup points that the planes scoop water from are also a challenge.