Supporting Helicopter Ops

After a long career in the Royal Air Force (RAF), heavily involved in search and rescue (SAR), what made you want to remain in the industry as a civilian?

Interestingly, there was no route open to me into commercial aviation when I left the RAF. Consequently, I moved into the emergency services equipment and vehicle support industry. I quickly came to terms with what I believed was the end of my flying career, and threw myself into being the best that I could in this new world. I worked for UK, international and multi-national companies with increasing responsibility and breadth of experience from managing sales teams and contracts, Interim Director posts and internal investigations. With hindsight, this experience was the ‘ground school’ for taking Air Rescue UK and Air Rescue Training & Simulation (ARTS) to where we are now and also to position us for the future. I was approached to consult on the bid for the UK Ministry of Defence Falkland Islands SAR bid, which brought me back to aviation and SAR. My heart has always been in helicopter aviation and, in particular, SAR. My break from flying and completing an MSc in Human Factors in Aviation has enabled me to guide the development of Air Rescue UK and ARTS with a refreshed view on developing the best from people to deliver the best service.

Air Rescue UK has a mission to become the number one support for helicopter hoist operators in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond. How does your experience and the experience of your staff help progress towards this goal?

Helicopter operations, including hoist operations are not complicated, but they can be complex, especially in reactive operations such as SAR, helicopter emergency medical services (HEMS) rescue, helicopter hoist operations (HHO) and airborne law enforcement. There are two sides to every coin. There are many commercial air transport aircraft operators that have never contemplated hoist operations but can, with the correct guidance, develop the capability. However, to assist such companies requires far more than an understanding of hoist or SAR operations. Each operator has their unique circumstances, differing regulatory requirements, industry expectations, cultural and language differences, and economic drivers.

On the other side of the coin, operators need rearcrew who are competent, adaptable and experienced to meet their needs. Outside of the large para-public contracts, training hours are always scarce and certainly not available in sufficient quantity to train inexperienced crew to safely deal with the complexities and uncertainties of a real-life rescue. Air Rescue UK has recruited based on ‘real world’ experience of SAR but backed up with breadth of aviation experience on differing types and in different environments. Our stand-up crew for the Falkland Islands had over 120 years of helicopter experience mostly in the SAR role. Our success has only been achievable with the support of a whole team, including our Operations Director, Regional Managers, Chief Crewmen, Head of Training and all our SAR Technical Crew, each one of them brings their broad experience of helicopter operations to make up Air Rescue UK.

crew to safely deal with the complexities and uncertainties of a real-life rescue. Air Rescue UK has recruited based on ‘real world’ experience of SAR but backed up with breadth of aviation experience on differing types and in different environments. Our stand-up crew for the Falkland Islands had over 120 years of helicopter experience mostly in the SAR role. Our success has only been achievable with the support of a whole team, including our Operations Director, Regional Managers, Chief Crewmen, Head of Training and all our SAR Technical Crew, each one of them brings their broad experience of helicopter operations to make up Air Rescue UKcrew to safely deal with the complexities and uncertainties of a real-life rescue. Air Rescue UK has recruited based on ‘real world’ experience of SAR but backed up with breadth of aviation experience on differing types and in different environments. Our stand-up crew for the Falkland Islands had over 120 years of helicopter experience mostly in the SAR role. Our success has only been achievable with the support of a whole team, including our Operations Director, Regional Managers, Chief Crewmen, Head of Training and all our SAR Technical Crew, each one of them brings their broad experience of helicopter operations to make up Air Rescue UK.

Air Rescue UK supplies full support for HHO through training, standardization and consultancy. Each operator has its own different requirements, where and how does this training take place?

I think the first part of the question is vitally important. Each operator does have their own requirements, their own operations manual, their own regulator, and different aircraft types. Any training has to meet the needs of the operator buying it. The days of ‘off-the-shelf’ training should be long gone. There is little point teaching a procedure to an operator if it is at odds with what’s already in their manuals; slight variations between what is written and what is delivered can have a negative effect on training transfer. The root of our training starts by understanding what an operator wants from the training and what is in its manuals and procedures; from that point, a training needs analysis can be completed and agreed. That training can be completed on the customer’s aircraft and also at our training center on the Hoist Mission Training System (HMTS) simulator. We have built long-term relationships with operators for training such that, after 7 years, we are still doing all the HHO initial and recurrent training for a European HEMS rescue operator.

With the Bluedrop HMTS, ARTS is able to expand its capabilities to incorporate mixed-reality/virtualreality training. How does this elevate the provision of training provided?

The Bluedrop HMTS is a game changer in simulation for HHO and other rearcrew training, such as helicopter external sling load operations, crew served weapons and night vision goggles operations. New generation hoist simulators offer a high level of true to life, immersive environments complemented with full fidelity cable haptics that can transform the training continuum from initial to advanced training, and decrease live flights, improve safety and practice low repetition, high risk missions.

That leads to two key definitions of principles of simulator use.

Positive training transfer occurs when task performance in the live environment is improved after training in the simulator. Two main factors affect training transfer:

• The degree to which the simulated task environment matches the live task environment

• The instructors’ ability to use the simulator effectively for delivering training. The first is closely coupled to aspects of fidelity, whilst the second is related to instructor training.

Fidelity includes the immediate working environment in the aircraft and the external environment that the aircraft is operating in. Fidelity also includes the behavior of elements of the simulator in response to student inputs (such as cable speed and acceleration responding to the movement and position of the hoist cable control), and its interaction with the external environment (such as cable swing relating to aircraft movement and the effect of rotor downwash on casualty position).

Ironically, simulation can provide more fidelity than an aircraft when it comes to practicing what cannot be carried through to completion in the air, for example, cable cuts, hoist emergencies and cable entanglements.

The Bluedrop HMTS has prompted a philosophical change from teaching a procedure and expecting trainees to build their mental models for applying them over time, to being able to develop the trainee’s mental models so that they can make the most suitable and safe decisions when first faced with complexity on a mission. The technology ARTS has now means that the future has arrived, and we can revolutionize rearcrew training with the Bluedrop HMTS.