Delays in Meeting Statutory Requirements and Oversight Challenges Reduce FAA’s Opportunities To Enhance HEMS Safety :

http://www.verticalmag.com/news/arti...adlinesoversig

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crunchin

Fair point. Wonder if anyone has done the safety stats to compare the 'top end' with the 'bottom' end.

The 11 air accidents mentioned here are 90% light singles:- More US Night HEMS Accidents - Aerossurance

CRAB
 

The way forward would be to align the sim more closely with the real thing but my guess is that if the certification process has it this way then it isn't going to change any day soon. Please address all correspondence to the competent authority.

What we can do - and i did it on Saturday night, quite successfully, - is to place the AP in SAS mode and fail the cyclic trim in the OFF position. If the situation is allowed to develop then what results is a good test of the pilots UA recovery skills and strategy.

G.

Never Fretter - when it comes to singles the numbers will always likely reflect what we are seeing, particularly for IIMC. Regardless of the training (which is obviously still very important and deserving of sim work) it will still come down to the age old note of currency versus proficiency, Single drivers generally just don't have the experience and/or regular practice. What I note is that the most comfortable single drivers on the line, are those that are either highly experienced on instruments from a prior position, or are flying IFR regularly in some other part time role eg. reserve duty or fixed wing. In those cases some would be happy with a wet compass and an ADF :)

IIMC Loss of situational awareness
 

Synthetic Vision might have saved a few lives by preventing loss of situational awareness in IIMC.

http://garmin.blogs.com/.a/6a00d8345...cc13e5e970b-pi

But if you don't train people to use it or test their ability to use it you have achieved no increase over simple, steam-driven instruments. It's not lack of technology, it is lack of training and assessment.

I'd tend to agree with cruncin and crab.

However there are views that there are too many unnecessary flights anyway.

Another good blog is here:-
Federal Investigators Find Oversight Lacking in Air Ambulances
http://www.christinenegroni.********...oversight.html
i.e.
http://www.christinenegroni. BRAVO LIMA OSCAR GOLF spot.co.uk/2015/04/federal-investigators-find-oversight.html

Perhaps the answer is a smaller fleet of better equipped aircraft, with better trained crew.

So, you don't think SynVis has anything over an artificial horizon. Hmmmm.

fly911 - that's not what I said.

Synthetic vision can be an aid - although it can encourage pilots to push further in poor weather, a bit like NVG.

But, if pilots are screwing up IIMC because their basic instrument skills are rusty or non-existent, then having synthetic vision won't improve things because you still have to believe your instrument display and do basic things like selecting and holding an attitude.

When you are fighting what your inner ear is telling you compared to what your instruments are telling you, all the SA in the world doesn't replace basic instrument scan skills.

All things being equal, I would rather go inadvertent with SynVis than a basic attitude indicator. I just think that it would be easier to relate to a real-life visual presentation and easier to ignore your vestibular sensations. That's just me.

I have been inadvertant and completed deliberate IMC aborts from the hover (day and night) - the initial part has to be about flying the aircraft as accurately as possible to get above safety altitude and that comes down to basic instrument skills.

Knowing where the high ground is and any obstacles (masts etc) is useful and that is what the synvis would give you but, too much information (however nicely displayed), can give sensory overload and distract you from what you really need to be concentrating on.

When the leans get you, it is not about how nice the display is, it is about how disciplined you are to believe your instruments, and that can be tricky if you don't practice regularly.

Training! Training! Training!
 

If "judgment" is a skill set that can be acquired or improved with training, as the FAA maintains, it should be the majority of the training time. If it's not a trainable subject, a fair few EMSers need to be replaced.
Judgment kills pilots, especially EMS pilots.

Training! Training! Training!
I don't need to memorize all the parameters of my aircraft. Almost all I need are marked on the gauge with green, yellow and red lines. I don't need to know runway gradient, I haven't been on a runway in years (it was a training event then) and I was last at an airport in January. These are regular training subjects for me...
We don't do "LAHSO", devoting a whole training segment is a complete waste of time. Time that the FAA says could be spent teaching "judgment".

Changing weather minimums to a million and infinity is no better than 800-2 when it doesn't change the next PICs decision to fly into darkness where he can't see lights to discover it's in a cloud. On the other hand, I've flown, VFR, hundreds of thousands of offshore miles in 300/2 with only 2 IIMC events, both of which were easily judgment preventable. (Because I always had a diversion or landing point within reach.) But, hey- increasing minimums has to increase safety, right? And add engines. And Autopilots. Twins and IFR crews exercise bad judgement at the same frequency, there's just a lot less of'em here.

I go to our training base to fly in conditions that 75% of my colleagues will never, ever operate in- the high plains. They are installing full motion sims there (which I hate but applaud as a training asset), and when I fly them I will be flying into airports I will never operate in. The approaches are in digital form, how much trouble is it to load the appropriate approach and practice that?

And there it is: generic training driven by inapplicable fixed requirements.

On the other hand, 75% of my colleagues do operate in unique environments. Maybe some of them could be consulted on training or be local trainers? (ladder safety?? Ladder safety is a training topic?) Perhaps they could teach the importance of relative humidity after midnight in the Smoky Mountains. Or they could teach that adding 5 minutes to a transit leg to make an early diversion around a potential weather system is a better plan than feeling your way through a squall line (22.6 nm diversion at the midpoint of the 100 nm leg).

Even if 'judgment' can't be trained, the factors that contribute could be trained... And perhaps numbnuts won't put the aircraft into the position of flying into darkness.

Shades of things to come....
 

SAS Air Wing.

Something we would love to have in the rest of the UK but can't actually afford!

Maybe the American taxpayers would like a big handout from the English taxpayers to help them fund their air ambulances:E

The right kind of training begins at the beginning.....
 

It is difficult to justify to those outside aviation the philosophy that we allow green-as-grass newbies to take on the role of Flight Instructor for those taking their first steps in the helicopter world. They - the world at large - think we are nuts ...... and I agree. You are right '49' you can't teach experience but there is some hope that an experienced instructor with a 1000 or (preferably) more hours flying in the real world behind him/her can transfer a modicum of his/her experience by a kind of 'osmosis'.

'Judgement' is like a seedling, it will grow straight and true when given a measure of careful nurturing and the right support. Are we surprised when things don't work out when all we have done is to seek out the cheapest, weakest education?

If the regulators design a system that is bound to fail, is open to abuse and ignores human nature's tendency to cheat then possibly they are guilty of a human factors deficiency? Isn't human factors supposed to be a vital component of a functional aviation community? IMHO the aviation education system is broken - cracked at least - and we need to fix it from the bottom up. Generally speaking the mature military model works better than almost any commercial system I have come across so it can be done.

G.

National EMS Pilots Association
 

A face to the tragedy
 

Buried Alive: What It's Like to Be Rescued from an Avalanche Video - ABC News

The pilot featured in this story is Captain Mahany.