|
Grand Canyon’s Helicopter Training
Academy is a comprehensive program that ties curriculum-based
instruction with hands on experience. Funding from the National
Park Service Intermountain Regional Office makes it possible
for the park’s Branch of Fire and Aviation to host the
academy, a series of two-week-long training sessions, from
May through September each year. The program targets three
Task Book positions within the National Interagency Incident
Management System: Helicopter Crew Member (HECM), Helicopter
Boss (HELB), and Helicopter Manager Call When Needed (HCWN).
The uniqueness of this training program
lies in the abundance and diversity of its flights. Grand
Canyon’s South Rim Helibase averages six hundred flight
hours per year. The park’s contracted MD 900 and Bell
407, both Type 3 aircraft, support fire management, Emergency
Medical Services, as well as maintenance activities, all of
which require sling work and moving external cargo. Concurrently,
trainees complete a variety of structured lessons on topics
that include risk management, crash rescue, long line cargo
work, helicopter fire fighting techniques, water ditching,
Emergency Medical Services and Search and Rescue operations.
Since it began in 2000, the academy has
hosted more than one hundred trainees from Federal, State
and Municipal agencies throughout the United States. A total
of thirty students successfully completed the program in 2004;
thirty additional trainees are expected to attend this year.
Many qualified Helicopter Crew Members and Helicopter Managers
are added to the interagency community upon completion of
this program.
For more information about Grand Canyon’s
Helicopter Training Academy, please contact Jay Lusher or
Mike Minton at 928-638-7823. Applications for the 2005 training
session can be found on the Southwest Area Wildland Fire Operations
web site at http://www.fs.fed.us/r3/ fire and are due by February 15th.
|
