The engineers keeping HEMS and SAR special missions flying
Behind the scenes, engineers keep SAR, HEMS and aerial firefighting aircraft in the air – Robin Gauldie talks to some of them about their inspiration and drivers
Rotorcraft engineering runs in the family for Dillon Baycroft, director of engineering at Coulson Aviation Australia
“My father is a helicopter engineer and has worked on Bell 212/412 helicopters for many years. They’re reliable aircraft that work great in multi-role environments, including firefighting,” said Baycroft.
Aged 19, he was working in a lumber mill in his home of Kelowna, British Columbia, when it was hit by what he calls a ‘horrifying’ fire season. One blaze destroyed over 200 homes, which inspired him to follow his father’s career path.
Baycroft recalled: “My dad got me an opportunity with a helicopter company to try it all out, and that was it for me. I started working as an apprentice engineer that very summer. I was fueling the aircraft, washing the aircraft, and repairing the Bambi water buckets.”
After joining Canadian company VIH Helicopters, Baycroft worked on its fleet of Bell 212, S-61 and Kamov firefighting helicopters in Indonesia in the summer of 2020 and through the British Columbia 2021 fire season.
After joining Coulson Aviation in Australia in 2021 as the Bell 412 Lead Engineer, he’s now Director of Engineering for Coulson Aviation Australia, based in Sydney, with responsibility for the New South Wales (NSW) Rural Fire Service (RFS) Bell 412 helicopter fleet and Cessna C560 jets.
Baycroft said: “As an engineer, my usual day begins with pre-flight inspections, system checks for buckets and the aircraft fueling system. Everything is ready for the day and then you’re on call. The pilots will get a dispatch and they start up the engines and the machines go.
“You’re not on the aircraft while it’s flying; you’re supporting the aircraft at the landing zone by fueling it and carrying out repairs as needed throughout the day. It’s not just the aircraft you’re working on – it’s the firefighting systems and equipment like the Bambi buckets or tanks.”
As Director of Engineering, Baycroft’s responsibilities change from day to day, he explained: “Sometimes I’ll go out and crew an aircraft. I do management of engineering crew, parts ordering, maintenance control planning, crew rostering and recruitment. I liaise with the NSW RFS for modifications and maintenance planning. I’ll liaise with operations on the day-to-day flight schedules. I undertake the initial training for maintenance items to pilots, new employees and engineers, carrying out system familiarization training for those who have never worked on a tank or a hoist, for example.”
Baycroft’s career path started in Canada in 2003 with type training, taking four years. “Financially I had to put myself through school,” he said. “In Canada, you do the training all at once. I was lucky that the company where I did my apprenticeship had 85 aircraft with many different types. We ran heavy, medium and light helicopters, both American and Russian products, and I worked on all of them throughout my apprenticeship.” He continued: “As an apprentice, you’re continually learning, and that exposure to lots of different engineers and aircraft was important.”
As an apprentice, you’re continually learning, and that exposure to lots of different engineers and aircraft was important
That learning experience continues throughout an engineer’s career, explained Baycroft: “There are courses to work on for each aircraft. I did Bell 412 training in 2015, recurrent Bell 412 training in 2018, and I’m doing CH-47D training right now.
“The NSW RFS Bell 412 aircraft are heavily modified. We use the forward-looking infrared red (FLIR) for fire mapping, but the mission consoles are Coulson-built, so I’ve had to learn a lot about these kits to understand how they operate and how to fix them.”
Troubleshooting and an analytical brain are key skills for engineers. “You need to be able to work on your own and think on your own. You have people’s lives in your hands and need to instill confidence, and that comes with time and experience,” said Baycroft.
Having fought fires in North America, Australia and Asia, Baycroft hasn’t lost his appetite for foreign climes.
“I always have been a traveler,” he said. “In a few years, I’d hope to be doing a similar role abroad. I’d like to both manage engineering operations and still have the option to be on the tools, maybe with a focus on CH-47Ds.”
Baycroft is not unaware of the difficulties to his work: “Very often you’re not at home, and for some people that’s hard. I’m suited to this lifestyle. Firefighting operations can also be emotionally hard, sometimes having to watch a town burn down during bad seasons.”
But he is proud of the work he does. Baycroft concluded: “I’ve been personally involved in maintaining an aircraft when they get dispatched to go help others and save people’s lives. That’s a great privilege.”
Now an engineer based at Bristow Group’s Caernarfon search and rescue (SAR) base, Reece Aspden joined Bristow as an engineering apprentice, and has no regrets
“I grew up around aircraft and aviation, but always knew I wanted to be an engineer of some kind,” said Aspden.
“While studying mechanical and building, a friend mentioned the Bristow apprenticeship scheme. Although I’d already applied for the Navy, I sent an application to Bristow too. Looking back, I definitely made the right choice,” Aspden continued.
“As an apprentice engineer, I studied for nine months in the Cotswolds, attending lessons, workshops and taking exams, with fantastic lecturers. This, followed by three years working with exceptional people in Bristow, all around the UK, helped me attain my first aircraft maintenance license.
“I’ve often been asked whether a university degree would have been more beneficial. For me, it’s an easy answer. I left my apprenticeship with experience, an internationally recognized license and enough savings to put a deposit on my first home.
“Having only quite recently attained my B1.3 license, I’m content in taking the time to gain more experience on the aircraft I work on and furthering my career by becoming a more competent engineer. There’s always more to learn and I’d like to start the process of taking my B2 licence exams this year," he said.
But there are hardships to contend with, explained Aspden: "There are many perks to a job in aviation maintenance, but perhaps one downside is how hard it can be to leave the job at the door. With such responsibility on your shoulders, you can find yourself at home, thinking about what you’ve done at work that day."
You can find yourself at home, thinking about what you’ve done at work that day
“You never really stop learning in aircraft engineering,” he added. Depending on the manufacturer, type training to work on a specific aircraft could mean a six to eight week course in the USA or Italy. “Or, if you’re lucky,” he quipped, “Aberdeen in November.”
Aspden said: “There’s always something to test your knowledge, even if you’ve worked on the same aircraft for years. It’s a small part of what keeps the job interesting. Continuation training keeps us up to date with the latest practices and information on our aircraft and everything encompassing aircraft maintenance.
“Once a year, we even get to train as firefighters and hose down real fires in a training environment. There’s plenty of variety.”
For Aspden, working on and around helicopters is satisfaction in itself: “They are incredible machines, and with modern developments are getting more complex. Obviously in a SAR capacity, the other side of the job satisfaction is when the aircraft comes back from a tasking, and you know that you’ve played a part in potentially saving someone’s life. That’s a pretty good feeling.”
Scott Weight, Senior Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) Engineer at Ambulance Victoria operated by Babcock Australasia, was hooked on engineering from his first taste of the job while still at school
“We were given the opportunity to do local work experience. I was unsure what I wanted to do with my life, so when I saw aircraft engineering as one of the options, I thought, ‘that sounds cool, I’ll give it a go’,” said Weight.
“I was to do two weeks of work experience with East Coast Helicopters, a local company at Caloundra Airport. I did my two weeks and absolutely loved it – so much so, I asked if I could come back and help out during the school holidays for free.
“I did this until I completed school and, after graduating in 1987, the owner of East Coast Helicopters asked if I would like to do an apprenticeship as an aircraft maintenance engineer. The rest is history,” said Weight. “In 1992, at the age of 22, I completed my four-year apprenticeship and had my first basic engineering license a few months later. I was on my way.”
As senior engineer at Ambulance Victoria, he is now responsible for maintenance of six AW139 helicopters contracted to provide HEMS support to the State of Victoria.
It’s a career that requires total commitment: “An EMS service doesn’t stop,” confirmed Weight. “You are constantly on call and on the go. This operation, in particular, is very demanding with a lot of moving parts, consuming a lot of my time during and after work.
An EMS service doesn’t stop. You are constantly on call and on the go
“We are constantly learning and upskilling via original equipment manufacturer (OEM) courses and other forms of currency training. This could be on a particular component like the hoist, or an aircraft monitoring system like Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS).
This records the status of critical systems and components on helicopters, so that the early detection of progressive defects, or indications of them, is possible. Therefore, rectification can be achieved before they have an immediate effect on operational safety. Aviation is constantly pushing the envelope of design and technology, so we’re seeing more technically advanced aircraft going into production. We need to be trained on them.”
After 35 years as an aircraft engineer, Weight still loves the job: “If I had to start again, I wouldn’t change a thing. Not too many people can say that about their job. I love the challenges, the complexity of the operation, and that we as an engineering team are contributing to saving lives. If that doesn’t give you job satisfaction, I don’t know what will," he concluded.
Megan Nunner, Engineer for Conair Aerial Firefighting’s aircraft, joined straight out of high school
Based at Abbotsford International Airport in British Columbia, Canada, Conair Aerial Firefighting’s aircraft maintenance engineers maintain and prepare for deployment a fleet of 70 fixed-wing aircraft. These are purpose-engineered for fighting wildfires on contract to governments around the world, with aircraft undergoing heavy maintenance between contracts. Nunner joined the team four years ago, straight out of high school.
“I knew I wanted something hands-on that was different,” said Nunner. “Aviation seemed to be an industry where I could do that.
“I stumbled across the Aircraft Maintenance Engineering (AME) program at British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT) and decided to apply. It was the best decision I ever made.”
Just 16 months later, she graduated with a diploma in AME and a job offer from Conair.
“School was a lot of work in a short period of time,” said Nunner. “I was lucky to receive two scholarships that helped pay for schooling.”
I have learned to pay attention to the smallest details
Since joining Conair, she has worked on aircraft including the AT802 Fire Boss, Cessna Caravan C208B, Convair CV580 and De Havilland Dash 8-400AT. And deep concentration is crucial: “Aerial firefighting is demanding on the airtanker, as missions are performed in challenging conditions – heat, turbulence, speed and elevation changes, plus low-level flying and rapid weight changes when a payload is released. I have learned to pay attention to the smallest details," she said.
Her work with Conair has taken her from her native British Columbia to Alberta, Alaska, Washington and Australia.
“I’m normally away from home four months out of the year on base during the fire season, but will spend eight months in the field this year,” said Nunner.
“It’s an emergency environment and the aircraft have to be ready to dispatch when needed. Sometimes this means working overnight on the airtanker, as it operates during the day. And there are long periods of downtime waiting for a callout. No day is ever the same.”
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FlySight
Mattia Carpin, System Engineer at FlySight, discusses why he is passionate about incorporation of technology in aviation
I have always been passionate about engineering since I received my first Windows XP computer on Christmas 2001 (my dad spent a fortune on that first PC, but it was worth it!). I knew I wanted to work with computers, so I enrolled at a technical high school. The other passion I always had was for airplanes. I spent my childhood visiting innumerable museums looking for all the Leonardo Da Vinci models of flying machines. When I enrolled on my Master’s degree in telecommunication engineering, I really didn’t know how to pair those two interests, they seemed so distant from each other.
I spent few months abroad in Norway, employed at Telenor, and then at the Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne, working on my Master’s thesis. Both those enriching opportunities gave me the chance to travel to a few conferences and meet great people but, when I graduated, I decided to go back to work in Italy. The question remained with me: how do I combine telecommunications with aviation? Well, the answer lay in Livorno, a small town in Tuscany, with FlySight. I joined the company as a System Engineer 5 years ago, working on the customization of our OPENSIGHT Mission Console software for their first international customer, the Norwegian Police. This was an exciting challenge for me due to the high expectations and, at the same time, I also had a strong desire and an encouraging team to provide a state-ofthe-art software, with the most advanced capabilities and the higher performances. The company grew quickly, and the product started to be recognized by more customers and end users, so my role and responsibilities changed.
Now, I travel a lot to meet our customers and gather their requirements to make sure that our solutions meet their expectations. I report their inputs and requests to our OPENSIGHT developers so that any new functions can be integrated and made available. I also spend lot of time in technical meetings with our new partners and companies that wish to integrate OPENSIGHT with their products and solutions.
OPENSIGHT is an independent platform for real-time situational awareness, mission planning and debriefing, with modular plugins, and is fully customizable and extensible through a simple software development kit for specific applications. I find this very motivating, since every new project poses novel challenges and differs from the last. In that sense, I never witness two identical days at work. Take a look at our OPENSIGHT success stories of the last months and fasten your seatbelts, more of them are coming very soon! Once every few months we also have the opportunity to check the performance of our system on specific test flights – and that, I guess, is the most exciting part of my job. For someone like me, incredibly passionate about airplanes, it’s always a challenge to be focused on our OPENSIGHT Mission Console while being flown around our beautiful Italian landscape and beyond!
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Air Ambulance Technology
Design Engineer for Air Ambulance Technology, Bastian Forster describes how a childhood fascination has translated into a secure and exciting career
How did you get interested in engineering?
From a young age, I have always had a fascination with problem solving and understanding how things work. I would often disassemble my toys and try to put them back together, and I also loved playing with creative toys like Lego bricks. As I grew older, I realized that engineering is all about solving complex problems and creating innovative solutions, which is similar to the stuff that I enjoyed as a child.
What attracted you to specializing in medical design engineering?
After completing my technical high school program in mechanical engineering, I was searching for a degree program that would be both engaging and in a field that had a strong and predictable job market in the future. As someone who also has a deep interest in the human body and its functions, medical engineering checked all of the boxes for me.
Air Ambulance Technology makes bespoke EMS interiors, what is it about the marriage of medical and aviation technology and equipment that you enjoy?
I find it very exciting to combine medical and aviation technology to create solutions that can save lives. We tailor the equipment specifically to the needs of medical professionals, so none of our equipment is exactly the same. This brings challenges but also a lot of variety into the job, which means the job never gets boring.
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PAL Aerospace
Paul Mandatori, Director of Engineering and Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) Designated Engineer at PAL Aerospace
Paul Mandatori joined DECA Aviation Engineering in 2006 and continued with the company through its acquisition by PAL Aerospace in 2014. Paul has been involved in the successful development of aircraft modifications and their associated Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) approvals. He currently leads the multidisciplinary engineering teams in Vaughan (ON), St. Johns (NL), Ottawa (ON) and Halifax (NS). Paul is also a Transport Canada Civil Aviation (TCCA) Designated Engineer (DE) under PAL Aerospace Design Approval Organization (DAO) #99-O-01. He received his Bachelor’s of Applied Science at the University of Toronto (Engineering Science – Aerospace major), and his Master’s of Applied Science at the University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies (UTIAS).
What made you interested in studying aerospace engineering at university?
Engineers around the world are leading the innovation of breakthrough technologies and advances that impact and improve almost every facet of our lives. My decision to become an engineer was very much rooted in my desire to be part of this evolution, to solve complex problems using creative and novel methods and to positively impact our society.
My interest in the field of aerospace started at a very young age. I spent much of my youth with my father, an avid aviation enthusiast, attending air shows, visiting aviation museums and designing, building and flying radio-controlled airplanes and rockets. Over the years, I became very eager to pursue a career in this field, contribute to the design and improvement of aircraft and have the opportunity to develop innovative aeronautical products. To achieve this, I completed a Bachelor’s of Applied Science (BASc) in Engineering Science (Aerospace discipline) at the University of Toronto and received great foundational knowledge regarding the field of aerospace engineering. I continued my education by obtaining my Master’s of Applied Science (MASc) at the University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies (UTIAS).
What makes engineering for special missions different and appealing?
The special mission sector of aircraft modifications is and has always been an exciting one. Our engineers and designers at PAL Aerospace have the distinct opportunity of regularly working with a diverse array of special mission projects. No two projects are ever the same. PAL is well known globally for developing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft as well as maritime patrol search and rescue (SAR) aircraft platforms. However, our engineering group has also been able to obtain extensive experience in developing other special mission aircraft such as medevac / air ambulance, aerial firefighting / water bombers, geophysical survey and mapping aircraft, passenger/cargo combi and full freighter conversions, executive interiors, environmental/atmospheric research platforms, long range auxiliary fuel tanks, etc. PAL’s ultimate mission is to help its clients solve their challenges and meet their needs with innovative and custom aerospace and defence solutions.
This holds great appeal for our engineers as, essentially, our group radically transforms aircraft, enabling them to provide a function/service that they were not originally intended to provide. This transformation comes with a diverse set of challenges that our engineering group is uniquely poised to overcome. Specifically, we are a Transport Canada Design Approval Organization (DAO) with the ability to design, engineer, test, certify and approve modifications to aircraft – with direct experience on over 60 platforms (both fixed-wing and rotorcraft). Furthermore, our team has developed a great depth and breadth of experience and expertise with a long history of supporting the aviation community both domestically and internationally.
With the unique culture and supportive ecosystem that exists within PAL, it has made it possible for us to overcome challenges that others may avoid.
PAL’s collaborative culture in our multidisciplinary group plays a key role in our ability to tackle various challenges. We have vast and diverse technical expertise within PAL and great national/international partners that we can tap into.
Complex problems typically involve diverse partnerships and the secret to successful collaborations is bringing your strengths to the table while maintaining an open-minded approach. At PAL, we are receptive to new ideas from our team members, and we are willing to entertain novel approaches and out-of-the-box strategies when traditional solutions are not sufficient. We leverage our past experiences in combination with our innovations to become more productive and effective in addressing new challenges.
I have the privilege of working with an exceptional and elite group of engineers and designers. Their experience and technical acumen have broadened our team’s resource pool and our ability to solve problems. However, I am most proud of our team’s dedicated mindset and shared strategic vision that has uniquely equipped us to overcome challenges and thrive where other organizations may struggle.
May 2023
Issue
We speak to engineers about their work; we find out about the demands for transporting neonates; we explore when VLATs are the superior choice for firefighting; we look at the tools and training to ensure positive outcomes in the event of a power failure; plus all of our regular content.
Robin Gauldie
Robin Gauldie is a former editor of Travel Trade Gazette and other travel and tourism industry titles. Now a freelance journalist specialising in travel, aviation and tourism, he writes for a variety of international consumer and business publications including International Travel & Insurance Journal, AirMed and Rescue, and Financial World.