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Nov
09
2020
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Posted by Admin
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1943 was the first year that helicopters were used to perform emergency medical services (Helicopter EMS; aka HEMS). According to The Smithsonian Institution’s magazine Air & Space, it was a Sikorsky YR-4B flown by the U.S. Army in Asia that conducted the first HEMS mission in April 1944. The two-seater YR-4B flown by Carter Harman rescued three wounded U.K. Commandos and a downed pilot from the Burmese jungle, lofting one at a time to safety using four separate flights.
Since then, helicopters have become essential civilian/military ‘air ambulances.’ The road from that relatively fragile YR-4B to today’s formidable HEMS machines made by Airbus, Bell, Leonardo, MD Helicopters, and Sikorsky (now part of Lockheed Martin) has not been a smooth one. It took persuasion and performance to convince skeptics that helicopters belonged in the EMS realm.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Air Evac Lifeteam
Flight For Life in 1972
History of EMS Helicopters
Med-Trans
REACH
Sikorsky YR-4B
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Opinion-Editorial
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Nov
02
2020
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Posted by Admin
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President Tyson Phillips of startup AT Systems LLC is at the very beginning of his business career. He’s never been an executive officer of a leading aviation company and his name is not known throughout the industry. He has yet to even turn a profit. This begs the question: Why profile this newcomer in “Executive Watch,” a feature that historically profiles executives with a history? Well, the answer is simple: Pilot Tyson Phillips is likely on the verge of making history. If the company he co-founded fulfills its promise, AT Systems will transform aviation training.
It is often said that need is the mother of invention. Oklahoma National Guard Pilot Phillips co-founded his company with fellow military pilot Andre Lavallee out of the mother of a need—the need to prevent the leading cause of often fatal helicopter accidents: spatial disorientation caused by degraded visual environments such as inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC) brown/white out.
[Read More...]
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Company Profiles
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Oct
26
2020
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Posted by Admin
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Frasca International occupies a unique and storied position in the flight training device world, thanks to founder Rudy Frasca and his involvement in the early stages of building FTDs back in the 1950s. Now five of his eight children continue to carry the torch and keep the company ranked as one of the top simulator OEMs in the world.
Frasca president/CEO John Frasca and his siblings were raised in the world of aircraft. Their late father Rudy was as passionate about piloting aircraft as he was about building flight simulators to help make aircraft safer.
Now with 62 years of experience, Frasca International is the only major family-owned flight simulator company. It employs more than 130 people, and about 3,000 of its sims are being used across more than 70 countries.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Aviation Training Devices (Basic or Advanced).
FAA levels of Full Flight Simulators (FFSs)
flight simulation
flight simulators
flight training devices
FRASCA
FTDs Level 1-3
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Company Profiles
Training
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Oct
19
2020
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Posted by Admin
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This true ordeal occurred on 14 April 2000, and was written by Chris Kruse, a retired U.S. Army and civilian medevac pilot:
St. Paul, MN
14 April 2000, 16:12 hrs.
Bell 222UT, N225LL
NTSB: CHI-000FA111
Sometimes life comes at you in small drips. At other times, like a fire hose stream. And still at other times, it resembles a water tower collapse.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Helicopter Crashes
Helicopter Emergency Procedures
Helicopter Safety
Categories:
Career Development
Safety
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Oct
13
2020
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Posted by Admin
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“My only point is to remind those of us who receive the benefits of altruistic servants to be thankful for their desire to do some of the dirtiest work on the planet. Every day (not once or twice in a lifetime, but every day) these amazing people intentionally put themselves into the most dangerous situations and environments. They inject themselves into people’s lives at the lowest points, when people are most scared, most sick, and generally at their worst. They do this repeatedly to help someone in need, to make that person’s life better.”
[Read More...]
Tags:
EMS
Front line workers
HAA
HAA Medics
HAA Pilots
HEMS Pilots
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Helicopter Sectors
Opinion-Editorial
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Oct
05
2020
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Posted by Admin
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Looking back, I recall the time just after separating from active duty with the U.S. Air Force. I was attending Alabama Aviation Technical College to obtain my Airframe and Powerplant certificate. It was during this time that I was hired at Fort Rucker by the helicopter maintenance contractor that supported U.S. military helicopter pilot training. One of the first requirements of this contractor was to have a minimum tools list. As a young man just out of the military, I did not own many tools nor could I afford to buy a lot. Taking my tools list, I drove to Sears to comply with the minimum, never dreaming that in the ensuing 39 years I would collect so many thousands of dollars in hand tools, special tools, precision tools and high-end toolboxes.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Airframe and Powerplant certificate
Alabama Aviation Technical College
Helicopter Maintenance
Maintenance Minute
U.S. military helicopter pilot training
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Career Development
Opinion-Editorial
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Sep
28
2020
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Posted by Admin
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There are wildfires in the woods, and then there are crazy-strange wildfires such as a recent one in Florida that was fueled by hundreds of cars. When you battle that kind of conflagration, you’re bound to learn a few new lessons. We certainly did.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Car lot aerial fire
Charlotte County Aviation Unit
Categories:
Opinion-Editorial
Human Interest
Training
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Sep
21
2020
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Posted by Admin
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Steve Wysong, the pioneering founder of avionics company, Wysong Enterprises, was born in Dayton, Ohio. That’s fitting, for Dayton also birthed another pioneering aviation shop started by the Wright Brothers. Like those famous flyers, Wysong’s life didn’t have the smoothest takeoff. His pastor-in-training father died before Wysong was born. He was raised by his mother and grandmother—and his grandfather’s power tools. The mother and grandmother nurtured their young boy and the tools occupied his hands and trained his brain. He says, “I didn’t have a lot of father guidance, so I had to do a lot of experimenting and teaching myself how to work with these tools. I played with them a lot and developed pretty good technical skills.”
[Read More...]
Tags:
Helicopter Avionics
Steve Wysong
Wysong Enterprises
Categories:
Company Profiles
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Sep
16
2020
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Posted by Admin
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It was 20 years ago that I reported to Fort Rucker, Alabama, as a newly minted instructor pilot, and little did I know that would be the fork in the road that changed the way I would forever see, communicate, and train pilots and people over my lifetime. Many of us took Psychology 101 in college where we received rudimentary information on personality types and cognitive functions. I was unaware at the time how theory would turn into concrete reality, and how observable and quantifiable that theory would be.
The Fort Rucker syllabus was typical of any flight training, and the schoolhouse provided a constant flow of students in an environment akin to a laboratory, replete with controls and structure. I had the opportunity to observe multiple students completing the same actions in a controlled environment; it took less than six months before I began to see the patterns. At first, I had no idea what I stumbled upon, it’s significance, and how it would change my teaching. Furthermore, it would solidify in my mind the scientific nature of personality type.
[Read More...]
Tags:
Flight Training
Personality Type
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Career Development
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Sep
16
2020
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Posted by Admin
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His commanding officer asked Travis Coil, a 4-year air defense artillery Army veteran, what he needed to do in order to convince him to re-enlist. Travis answered, “A $2 million re-enlistment bonus and a two week vacation in Hawaii.” Fourteen years of civilian life later, Travis is now an outstanding and highly qualified A&P mechanic who has worked in a variety of fields within the helicopter industry.
[Read More...]
Tags:
AMT to A&P
Heidi McBride
military aviation maintenance training
Categories:
Career Development