This article first appeared on Fire Aviation.
In 2019 our Australian friends in the New South Wales Rural Fire Service built a Training Academy in Dubbo for improving the skills of fire personnel when responding to emergencies across the state. They soon will be adding an Aviation Centre of Excellence which will have four flight simulators.
One of those simulators is being used now in the Academy, and is based on a helicopter cockpit for trainees wearing virtual reality helmets. The immediate plans are for air attack supervisor roles and later for other airborne positions.
The system will be for maintaining currency, and to give trainees new to aerial firefighting the chance to find out if the role is for them.
The simulator was delivered in December and the staff has been building training scenarios, with some based on actual fire situations.
Located at the Dubbo City Regional Airport, the Academy includes classroom and practical training with a large auditorium, lecture theater, indoor and outdoor training areas, gym, and catering services with a commercial kitchen. The academy will ultimately have 97 bedroom accommodations for trainees.
“I think it’s really important that apart from the fact that we are launching the simulator here, it becomes another building to support our academy,” said Commissioner of the NSW RFS Rob Rogers. “This is the first of four simulators that we will have in that building. Having the ability to train our own people and use simulator systems like this to be able to upskill people in a non-hazardous environment and obviously then complement that with actual flying will help our people become better trained and have access to better technology.”
The video below is an introduction to the flight simulator.
The next video is about the Training Academy.
