AirMed&Rescue November 2021 issue out now

November is aviation history month. But AirMed&Rescue likes to keep one eye on the future: the dramatic growth of technologies such as automation and virtual and augmented reality has transformed the cockpit in ways that the earliest aviation pioneers likely never imagined. The acuity and quantity of data available to pilots, and the means to train crews for the cockpit experience, has never been greater, both in volume and quantity.

Automation and virtual and augmented reality are not immutably supportive technologies. Both can be over- and underutilized, and both struggle when they are designed without understanding of the human component central to their value. This month, Alex Pollitt discusses the duality of automation, and how it is both a tool that lowers the pilot workload and enables more accurate flying than ever before, and how it is also capable of exposing the many human limitations and exaggerates weaknesses when implemented without consideration for the pilot. Also, Will Belk profiles the endless value the extended reality sector – encompassing virtual, augmented, and mixed reality – can have in all aspects of SAR and HEMS.

Also in the November issue, Joetey Attariwala takes a closer look at the technology used on the helicopter and some the latest SAR equipment that pair innovation with accessibility, Amy Gallagher looks at how communications are maintained in disaster situation, specifically Hurricane Ida, and Barry Smith walks us through perhaps the worst scenario in helicopter missions; having to cut the hoist cable.

We barely have enough space here to detail the interviews with Rob Pennell and his work on the EASA South East Asia Aviation Partnership Project and Bristow’s Mark Scotland on his 2020 rescue that won him the Royal Humane Society’s award for bravery, our case study of MedHealth Partner’s first ECMO-dependent patient transfer, and much more. Why not see what else the November issue has in store?