Rick Lucas understands the difference five minutes can make in an emergency situation.

For more than two decades he’s been flying helicopters in some of New Zealand’s most high-profile rescue operations. Time and again he has seen how better information about the potential whereabouts of a downed aircraft could have cut search times.

Today Rick is CEO of HELiPRO, New Zealand’s leading helicopter company. Now, prompted by some recent high-profile search and rescue operations, he is installing Telecom Locate+ in all 23 of his helicopters.

“For the last two years we have used Locate+ in three of our training helicopters, but recent experience has shown us that it is crucial for the safety of all our pilots to have it installed across our fleet.”

Fleet tracking
As well as search and rescue, Rick and his team are often called on to fly into extremely difficult terrain to fight fires, or over large expanses of water.

“If there is ever a helicopter of ours in trouble in future, we will be able to locate them quickly, and that means a better chance of saving lives.”

The HELiPRO fleet already has an electronic flight following system which monitors all aircraft arrival times, and sounds an alarm at all of the company’s bases if the flight is overdue.

This, combined with Locate+, can tell Rick where a helicopter is at any given time in both geographical and coordinate positions.

“Previously all we would have known is that a flight was, for example, somewhere between Taupo and Auckland. Now we can tell if it is near a particular road, town or landmark. It can even tell us the speed and direction that the aircraft is flying,” says Rick.

Telecom Locate+ uses GPS (Global Positioning System) tracking with Navman software and Telecom’s 027 mobile network to collect precise location data, then make it available to HELiPRO in near real-time.

If a helicopter goes outside Telecom’s 027 coverage, the GPS unit stores location data, which Locate+ then sends as soon as the helicopter returns to mobile range.

Saving Lives
“This technology is an insurance policy. Still, while it gives us peace of mind knowing that we could find a downed helicopter, we hope we never have to use it in that way,” says Rick.

“I think we’ve only begun to explore what Locate+ will be able to do for us. It’s an affordable system that is giving us everything we need to manage the safety of our fleet.”

January 2007