PHI First Air-med Operator To Deploy Loft VR Simulator

PHI Air Medical has installed a Loft Dynamics virtual reality (VR) helicopter flight simulator at its Mesa, Arizona training base. The simulator replicates the Airbus Helicopters H125 (AStar) and features a six-degrees-of-freedom motion base and a fully complete cockpit with avionics and tactile controls.

Loft’s H125 VR simulator is qualified by the FAA as a level 7 flight training device and by EASA as level 3, allowing training credit for certain proficiency and recurrency activities. Using a VR headset eliminates the need for an expensive visual display system.

The company flies more than 22,500 patients a year from 82 bases in the U.S. with a fleet of more than 100 helicopters that have logged 12.5 million flight hours. Its 15 Astars are based primarily in the Western U.S.

“We fly into the unknown every day—remote crash sites, busy city centers, adverse weather, unfamiliar terrain—and we do it in service of patients who don’t have time to wait,” said Duke Baker, director of aviation operations at PHI Air Medical. “With this technology, we can safely give our pilots any mission at any time, right at our home base, and rehearse until the maneuvers become instinctive, ingrained in muscle memory and reflex. And it’s not just a win for us, it’s a signal to the entire industry of what’s now possible. This technology is powerful.”

Plans call for PHI Air Medical to use the Loft simulator for initial and recurrent pilot qualifications for Part 135 operations and for emergency maneuvers and scenario-based air medical training. Instead of having to send pilots to an offsite simulator training provider, he said, “This will be in-house qualifications and training. We control the schedule, so that’s a big plus for us.”

The savings are not just in time and the cost of sending pilots elsewhere, but the simulator also helps PHI get new pilots trained and tested faster, with training that meets PHI’s own high standards. Even after outside simulator training, pilots still need time in the actual helicopter, but the Loft simulator will replace some of that time, especially with its ability to replicate emergency situations that are too dangerous to attempt in the helicopter.

“We will use the simulator for emergency training and procedures like switches, systems, and checklists,” Baker said. “The simulator will save a lot of flight time.” It will also help train pilots unfamiliar with air medical operations how to operate into unimproved landing areas with obstructions, ground personnel, ambulances, and fire trucks. “It looks like a real scene,” he said, “and eases a lot of tensions for pilots who have never been exposed to those situations.”

Training for inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions (IIMC) will also be an important use of the simulator. “It’s a proven issue in our industry that we still see IIMC events now and then,” he said. “That will be part of the training scenarios.” The benefit of the simulator is that it can replicate real-life IIMC, which are subtle and not just like a wall of clouds that can easily be avoided. “Before you can avoid it, you’re in it,” he explained. “It does happen.” The simulator will help give pilots the confidence to safely handle IIMC encounters.

“We fly a lot of hours and move a lot of patients, and our main focus is safety,” he said. “The advantage with the Loft simulator is that it mimics the real aircraft to the point where it feels like you’re flying a real helicopter. Their source data comes directly from the manufacturer; they have very accurate flight data that helps with simulation accuracy.”