Toll Helicopters’ Aeromedical Crewing Excellence (ACE) Training Center at Bankstown Airport, west of Sydney, has revolutionized emergency medical services (EMS) and search-and-rescue (SAR) training in Australia and is now a new benchmark for the rest of the world.
The center was set up to train Toll’s own pilots and aircrew — along with paramedics and doctors from the New South Wales (NSW) and the Australian Capital Territory ACT) ambulance services — for a new 10-year aeromedical retrieval and rescue contract for the state’s heath department. The contract has Toll operating a fleet of eight Leonardo AW139 helicopters across four bases.
The training center occupies a stand-alone facility behind Toll’s operational rescue base at the airport. Inside is a CAE 3000 Series AW139 Level D full-flight motion simulator, a Survival Systems Mets 30 Helicopter Underwater Escape Training (HUET) simulator, and a virtual reality-based Complete Aircrew Training System (CATS). The center also includes a wet and dry winch simulator, a 120-seat theater, and space for a second full-motion simulator.
The ACE center has 11 dedicated instructors. These include four pilot instructors, one HUET instructor, three crewman trainers, and three instructors who are online to fly missions as part of the crew, and who stay contemporary and up-to-date with procedures while undertaking crew training when appropriate to do so.
With its use of high-fidelity simulation to support in-aircraft training, Toll’s ACE center has led to improved operational capabilities and safer operations for its ambulance contracts. However, above its contract requirements, Toll Helicopters is offering European Aviation Safety Agency and U.S. Federal Aviation Administration approved AW139 training to external individuals and operators, and can develop tailor-made HUET and air crewman training courses for a specific company’s needs.
“Our ACE training center and program is really innovative and a step change for the world of how to train for EMS,” said Toll Helicopters chief pilot Colin Gunn. “ACE is a level of fidelity that is not available anywhere else to civilian operators. And when we talk HUET, it’s not just rolling upside down in a cage in a pool and tick a box to say ‘you’re current,’ we are putting people in a program where they build up to Sea State 2 or 3 with wind, with rain, in darkness with lightning and thunder. We’re doing the best for our crews to ensure they get to go home after work to see their families.”
Aircrew who have previously used legacy HUET trainers, and who have now used the Mets 30 HUET device with all of its add-on sensory features at the ACE center, say it is an experience that is as close to reality as they could want to get.
Resurfacing from a successful egress from the inverted and submerged cabin, dual fans simulate winds up to 145 kilometers per hour (90 miles per hour) and a single fan positioned above simulates the downwash of a hovering AW139 tasked to winch you from the water. A large bobbing “ball” at the end of the pool whips up three-foot waves. Strobe lighting, synchronized to a sound system, authentically replicates a thunderstorm and is mixed in with audio of the helicopter. It is exhilarating stuff, and that’s just observing from beside the pool.
“Participants so far have said our HUET is extra challenging, particularly to pop out the windows with realistic forces of being underwater,” said Gunn. “We add the extra dimension of training where you are winched out of your life raft and up into the helicopter with simulated downwash, the noise and three-foot waves. What we are doing is the next step towards reality and it is really being welcomed in the industry. It brings home the dangerous nature of the situation crews may face. They are trained better, which is the ultimate aim.”
At first glance, Toll’s CATS device is merely a skeletal shell of an AW139 cabin. After putting on a set of virtual reality (VR) goggles attached to a headset, however, you are instantly immersed in an environment with graphics so crisp and detailed that after a few moments you start believing you are in fact sitting in the rear cabin of an AW139.
Developed by Australia’s Virtual Simulation Systems of Anna Bay, Port Stephens, the recent addition of an accurate cockpit with a domed screen in front of the CATS device means pilots can fly the mission for the crew. During an exercise, the crew sitting in the cabin see the same synchronized graphics through their VR goggles as what is being projected on the screen for the pilot. Crewmen can give guidance to maneuver the helicopter for a confined area operation or for a winch rescue.
“The graphics are very high quality and have enough hover references for the pilots to conduct a realistic winch accurately while achieving the training outcomes the crewman needs as well,” said Gunn. “Now we can do combined training front and back seat at the same time with emergency malfunctions and all of the other scenarios that we can throw at it.”
Since starting its NSW Ambulance contract in February, Toll has flown some challenging sorties, which most of its crews have been exposed to over their careers. However, the details of any missions that offer up some new challenges to the crews are entered into a Aeromedical Crew Resourcing Management program as part of the standard debrief after every mission.
“We are investing in the best software we could find in the world for helicopter flight data monitoring systems,” said Gunn. “What this will mean is if we have a learning incident or a human factors event we will log that as a quality report to learn from. So if something happens on a Monday, then we want that being instructing it in the CATS or in the Level D sim by the Wednesday so we are completely relevant and contemporary. We are about modern, contemporary helicopter SAR EMS human factors training which is relevant now — today.”
Impressive no doubt. The AW 139 seems to be the tool of choice nowadays. I certainly hope operators don’t experience a H225 like event when all the SAR “eggs” are in the one basket.