Austrian aeromedical service ÖAMTC Air Rescue and RotorSky, an Austrian ATO, have formed a partnership to develop helicopter training within the country.

The optimal support of the pilot by the technical crew member during the different flight phases is an essential safety factor in air rescue. For this reason, regular cockpit training will also be a legal requirement for technical crew member at a European level from 2022.

“Even though we have been actively involving our technical crew members in simulator training for several years, this new regulation will result in an increased training effort for us,” states Reinhard Kraxner, MD of ÖAMTC Air Rescue. “That is why we are pleased that we have been able to attract RotorSky, one of the largest and most successful flight schools in Austria, as a cooperation partner for the training and further education of our pilots and flight rescuers.”

Together, a training concept will be developed based on the new European guidelines, which will focus on day-to-day teamwork with constantly overlapping competences.

“Both RotorSky and ÖAMTC Air Rescue have unique expertise in their respective fields,” adds Christian Gruber, CEO of RotorSky. “It was therefore a logical step to combine our competencies to develop and implement top quality training solutions.”

As a first step, a modern and type-specific flight simulator, which represents the H135 helicopter used by ÖAMTC Air Rescue, will be set up at RotorSky's base in Linz. This synthetic training device will offer pilots and technical crew members the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the flight characteristics of the helicopter in a safe environment, to practise flight manoeuvres and to work through incidents together.

“The central location of the education and training offer in Linz also has an economic advantage for us,” explains Marco Trefanitz, CFO of ÖAMTC. “Until now, comparable simulators were only available in Germany. This Austrian solution now gives us the opportunity to organise necessary training more flexibly, efficiently and cost-effectively.”

The cooperation between ÖAMTC Air Rescue and RotorSky guarantees an optimal exchange of experience because the existing know-how of both cooperation partners can be accessed at any time. In the future, the teaching staff of both flight schools will be jointly deployed in a wide variety of training projects.