The Arkansas Children’s Hospital’s aviation program, Angel One, has recently been awarded FAA approval for their Helicopter Flight Data Monitoring/Flight Operations Quality Assurance (HFDM/FOQA) program.
As one of the leading small operators of Helicopter Emergency Medical Services (HEMS) programs in the country, Arkansas Children’s Hospital (ACH) has continually set the standard for the industry, and this certification from the FAA continues the trend. As the first HEMS program in the nation to reach such a milestone, ACH’s program is indeed a significant achievement.
ACH has utilized Appareo Systems’ ALERTS – Aircraft Logging and Event Recording for Training and Safety – system as the backbone of their HFDM program. ALERTS, the first lightweight, low-cost and fully integrated system for light aircraft is in use by helicopter operators around the world and has recently seen increased implementation in HEMS operations.
Appareo’s leadership in the lightweight HFDM market and their solid customer support was key to ACH’s decision to utilize ALERTS equipment.
“Appareo was the first company to be able to think outside the box and design and produce an effective, efficient event recording device that was affordable, light weight and not overly complicated to install and certify,” said BJ Raysor, ACH’s Director of Aviation. “They were key in supporting us while we worked through the approval process. If Appareo had not developed the recording device they did, we would not have a FAA approved FOQA right now.”
FOQA and HFDM programs provide aircraft operators with concrete data on how their fleets are performing through flight data collection and analysis, allowing those operators to identify potentially problematic incidents and trends before they result in a dangerous and costly accident.
An important factor to encourage participation in such FOQA/HFDM programs is that the FAA’s approval of their program allows the operator to work more collaboratively with federal flight safety regulators in evaluating and, if necessary, remediating flight safety issues and concerns. All data generated in an approved program can only be used for the purposes of the HFDM and its operational plan. Additionally, the HFDM information can be presented to the FAA in a standardized, de-identified format to help them better allocate resources and infrastructure.
FOQA programs have been commonplace in commercial fixed-wing aviation for several decades, but have only recently become viable in helicopter-based operations, due largely in part to the development of recording equipment that is small enough and cost-effective for light aircraft such as those used in HEMS operations.
ACH began their process to attain FAA approval in 2008 and received notification of their success in September 2009. In addition to relying on the ALERTS system to gather and analyze flight data on their two Sikorsky S76 C+ aircraft, ACH has also hired a third-party consulting company, CAPACG, to provide additional event analysis and to assist in further developing their HFDM program.
Though time consuming, ACH has already seen returns from their HFDM efforts, including a better understanding of how their aircraft are operating on a daily basis and improved communication across their aviation team resulting from their efforts to define and implement the parameters of their HFDM program.
“We are already seeing a real benefit to the enhancements we are able to make to our training program based on real mission information,” said Raysor. “Additionally, we have had a few events that revolved around equipment failures and have attained a much better understanding and more details on what occurred and why. That type of information would not have been available to us without the ALERTS equipment.”
“It’s been our pleasure to work with such a leader in the HEMS industry,” said Ben Wright, Appareo’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing. “Arkansas Children’s Hospital is leading the charge in many areas, and especially in HFDM. The work they’ve done raises the bar for operators across the country.”
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