Magazine Helicopter Industry #102

HI: Are you talking about the European Aviation Safety Agency
(EASA)?
CZ: Yes, absolutely. So the first question was about
disinfection. Then came the segregation of the cabin. But
cabin segregation also means separation of ventilation flows
in air conditioning systems. We have therefore developed
solutions to block or segregate air flows where possible. Then
we received questions related to the operators’ operations.
Wherever possible, we proceeded to validate their technical
solutions. For example, there is a need for electrical current
transformers. In order to be able to transport patients with
their ventilators, solutions had to be found to allow them to
operate on 220 volts AC, not 28 volts DC. Either we proposed
solutions that exist on the market or customers proposed
solutions that they wanted to implement. We did analyses
and then issued what we call “No technical objections”,
technical approvals.
HI: Still under EASA?
CZ: Yes and no: through our Authorized Designer Approval,
we can give a “No Technical Objection”. It’s covered by our
approval. Between the first questions and the first structured
answer, generalized to all operators, we took less than two
weeks.
HI: Another sub-question: From which regions of the world did
the first questions from come?
CZ: Europe. It was kind of like tracking the virus. The
questions arrived in Europe from French, Italian and then
German operators. Two to three weeks later, they came
from North America. Faced with these demands, we have
undertaken several things. We have published briefing notes
through which we can easily reach all of our clients. But we
have also reinforced our usual communication flow to our
customers that we considered critical in this pandemic: EMS
operators (patient transport), para-public operators (police)
and military operators, in order to understand their needs
and pass on a certain amount of information to reassure
them, for example about our supply chain or our logistics
situation at the moment. We also heard their questions and
considered solutions to their problems, because being close
to the customers is something that is important to us. This
led us to update the briefing notes we had developed. Finally,
we reached our critical customers at least once every two
weeks through our network of customer support managers.
So we’re dealing with about 450 questions a week. Many
of them concern the world of medical transport – EMS,
protection, disinfection, separation. Now the customers are
changing. Because the implementation of these solutions
proves to be costly. Secondly, we received more and more
questions about what they call PID (Patient Isolation
Devices), those kinds of cocoons that completely isolate the
patient. Here again, we have issued technical approvals and
given advice on the integration of this equipment in the cabin,
power supply, oxygenation. All this concerns professionals
who are fighting the pandemic directly. But there were also
other requests, in connection with the French operation
“Résilience”, when the government fleets began to be used.
We’ve seen the NH90s, the Cougars and the Caracal come
on the scene. Through our organisation, which manages
the French customer, we have developed solutions adapted
jointly with the operators. We have also received comparable
requests from Germany and Sweden. In their case, we do not
have the same airworthiness constraints, because it is often
the customer himself who is his own authority in this area:
he can more easily, not certify, but qualify the solution. At
the same time, we have all other customers to manage – we
follow 420 EMS, parapublic and military operators. We have
noticed, through the questions asked, that an evolution is
taking place: we are dealing with more and more questions
about the temporary immobilization of machines. For
example, in the United States, almost all tourist flights are
banned by the government. Customers then want to place
their machines in temporary storage. They sometimes show
a willingness to anticipate some maintenance tasks. We are
therefore taking a lot of questions into account in this sense.
All this leads us to think about how we can be proactive in
the prospect of deconfinement of helicopters, because if
customers have immobilized machines for several weeks or
even months in sometimes hostile environments (extreme
cold, heat, humidity, salty air), we must be proactive in order
to limit the risks associated with return to service as much
as possible.
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