SRT Helicopters: Improving Rotorcraft Safety with Real-World Training
There’s training — and then there’s real-world training. The difference between the two could be the difference between life and death, according to Christian Gadbois, owner of SRT Helicopters.Gadbois will showcase SRT and its real-world, mission-specific training programs for the first time at Heli-Expo 2007 in Orlando, Fla., (Booth 454).
SRT is the only helicopter training company to:
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Exclusively employ working rescue professionals.
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Provide disaster response services. SRT teams have responded to hurricanes (including Katrina), earthquakes and tsunamis, and a host of other disasters.
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Use an integrated approach to training so that pilots and crew members, for example, learn how to work together effectively.
Gadbois, a former U.S. Army Special Forces medic, believes it’s important to augment factory training with more team-oriented approaches that prepare pilots and crews for specific missions and the reality of helicopter operations in life-or-death situations. “We do things differently,” he said. “You will not learn the things you really need to know just sitting in a classroom.”
Because the SRT training staff is comprised of working professionals who regularly respond to real-world disasters, the company’s training methods and curriculum are current, relevant, and designed to address real-life operational scenarios. What’s more, SRT training is customized to meet the requirements of each customer’s missions and includes:
- Initial and Recurrent Pilot Training
- CRM/Human Factors for Air Crew and Management Personnel
- Technical Rescue Training, including Hoist Operations and Maintenance
- Incident Management and Incident Command Training
- Special Operations, including Airborne Use of Force
- Operations in Austere Environments
Gadbois has identified five recurring issues that consistently occur in any disaster response. As a result, SRT training is specifically designed to improve knowledge and skills related to interoperability, communication, incident management, common terminology, and planning.Planning, especially, is an area that is critically important yet often overlooked, so it’s a strong area of focus in SRT programs.
Based at Meadows Field in Bakersfield, Calif., and flying a mix of Bell, Eurocopter, MD and Schweizer helicopters, students learn and hone their skills at SRT’s 5,000 square-foot hangar facility and classroom, an off-site hoist-training tower, and a military law enforcement ranch. Training for desert operations occurs at Edwards Air Force Base. The nearby mountains and Pacific Ocean provide venues for high altitude and water training.
“I’ve heard it said that things don’t change until people die,” Gadbois said. “That’s why we’re not waiting for change, we’re driving it — one student at a time.”
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