Articles for category Safety
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Nov
14
2016
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Posted by Admin
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In a bid to improve operational safety, helicopter air ambulance (HAA) operators Air Evac Lifeteam and Air Methods are incorporating two-axis autopilots into their light single-turbine helicopters. Air Evac Lifeteam is updating the Bell 206 Long Rangers and Bell 407 helicopters in their 150-plus helicopter fleet with Genesys Aerosystem (formerly Cobham) HeliSAS Autopilot and Stability Augmentation System (and Garmin 500H glass cockpits) by the end of 2017. Air Methods is focussing on including autopilots whenever it purchases new helicopters for its 400-plus fleet, including the 200 Bell 407GXPs it is purchasing between now and 2024. The Bell 407GXP comes with a Garmin G1000H glass panel avionics system integrated to a Bell-designed autopilot system for a cutting-edge combination that can also be retrofitted into the Bell 407GX.
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Categories:
Helicopter Sectors
Safety
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Oct
10
2016
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Posted by Admin
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I’d been awake for 17 hours when the phone rang at 12:45 a.m. The communications specialist said, “There’s a scene call on Palomar Mountain. Will you be able to take the flight?”
“Well, I’ve only had one shot of Tequila, but let me check the weather and I’ll get right back to you.”
Sound implausible? The shocking truth is that it’s not—not when you consider a study published in the British Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, where researchers in Australia and New Zealand determined that from 16 percent up to 60 percent of road accidents involve sleep deprivation. This reflects some of the same hazardous effects as being drunk. Although I had never actually had a drink that night, my cognitive thinking, my body, and reflexes were as adversely affected as if I had.
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Categories:
Helicopter Sectors
Safety
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Oct
03
2016
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Posted by Admin
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Imagine a future where helmet-mounted night vision goggles (NVGs) are replaced by light-enhancing contact lenses. While this might seem like some high-tech invention in the latest Mission Impossible movie, the idea itself isn’t fiction. Rather, researchers at the University of Michigan have developed a super-thin, graphene-based light detector that can see light wavelengths invisible to the human eye. This includes the thermal energy detected by NVGs that is amplified and rendered into human-viewable black and green/black and white images.
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Categories:
Training
Safety
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Sep
26
2016
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Posted by Admin
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A few months ago I was visiting a large helicopter flight school. While touring the school, I had the opportunity to sit in on a ground school class. The students were training toward their helicopter instrument rating, so the material being presented was on that topic. My initial impression was very positive. I thought: Wow, these young aviators are getting a great education in a highly standardized, quality-based training environment.
The portion of the course I was observing was covering takeoff considerations during IMC conditions and the regulatory requirements identified in Federal Aviation Regulation (FAR) 91.175. All was going well ... and then I heard these words: “An instrument takeoff (ITO) is nothing more than a maximum performance takeoff into IMC.” Initially I thought I misheard the instructor, but it became quickly apparent that I had indeed heard correctly.
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Categories:
Career Development
Training
Safety
Regulatory
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Aug
29
2016
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Posted by Admin
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The United States Helicopter Safety Team is offering a supportive voice to recent changes made by the Federal Aviation Administration in its Practical Test Standards (PTS) for helicopter instructors. (https://www.faa.gov/training_testing/testing/test_standards/media/FAA-S-8081-7B.pdf)
“The revision provides examiners a path to mitigate some risks associated with the Flight Instructor PTS requirements to demonstrate proficiency in the touchdown portion of an autorotation,” explains Raj Helweg, USHST industry co-chairman and chief pilot of Air Methods. “If a CFI applicant has proven competence with this touchdown portion of an autorotation prior to the evaluation, these revised test standards offer flexibility and a greater margin of safety by eliminating the requirement to repeat these maneuvers during the practical test.”
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Categories:
Safety
Training
Regulatory
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Aug
08
2016
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Posted by Admin
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Decision-making is a frequent occurrence in our daily lives. As aviation professionals, the choices that we make can certainly have critical implications on the outcome of a flight or maintenance activity. When selecting between several options or different courses of actions we often do so unconsciously, without reference to the influences that might drive our decision. We often do not realize that there is underlying stimulus that can motivate our choices. Studies have shown that there is a definitive relationship between culture and decision-making strategies. We belong to what Allan Stewart describes as “high-reliability organizations.” Due to the catastrophic potential of our work, it is critical that safety culture and decision-making align to enable the best choices.
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Categories:
Safety
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Aug
01
2016
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Posted by Admin
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The United States Helicopter Safety Team (www.ushst.org) will focus major attention during the next four years on reducing fatal accidents within the U.S. civil helicopter community.
The industry-government partnership is targeting a reduction to 0.61 fatal accidents per 100,000 flight hours, which is 20 percent less than the average since 2009. For a baseline comparison, the USHST is using a fatal accident rate of 0.76. This is the average fatal accident rate for the prior five years that have final and reliable data (2009-10 and 2012-14) derived from the FAA General Aviation Survey.
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Categories:
Safety
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Aug
01
2016
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Posted by Admin
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Modern airborne video surveillance systems enable mission teams to search for objects of interest and observe unfolding events (either overtly or covertly) while recording and reporting what’s being observed. Improvements to a helicopter’s video surveillance system can significantly improve mission effectiveness. Ways to improve the system include:
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Categories:
Training
Safety
Regulatory
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Jul
18
2016
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Posted by Admin
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In the 1960s and ‘70s a disease seemed to strike the airline industry that caused airliners to crash for no known reason. NASA called a “Resource Management on the Flight Deck” workshop that identified human error as the main cause of several high-profile accidents. NASA’s research uncovered that from 1968 to 1976 there were 60 airliners that crashed due to elements of human error. Researching back further through the Boeing archives to 1940, NASA discovered that four out of five accidents—80 percent—had an element of human error. Since that workshop, six generations of CRM have emerged.
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Categories:
Safety
Training
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May
16
2016
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Posted by Admin
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It certainly wasn’t my intention to be on drugs when I addressed FAA regulators at the “Meet the FAA Regulators” session at HAI Heli-Expo 2014. Two hours prior to that talk, I literally couldn’t walk. My back suddenly went out causing excruciating lower back pain, something that occurs every three years or so due to years of competitive tennis and decades in the cockpit. Still, I needed to tell the regulators that they missed a real opportunity to draft meaningful new rules to stop the unacceptable HEMS accident rate. Throwing a mix of over-the-counter painkillers down my throat, I gingerly made my way to the convention center.
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Categories:
Safety