Page 62 - HeliOps Frontline Issue 26

62 HELIOPS FRONTLINE / ISSUE 26 / 2019

of a theoretical part and a ‘wet’ part, where pilots and crew get
hands-on training at increasing levels of difficulty. We train 450
to 500 pilots and crew members every year and we have over 20
years of experience.” Cdr. Rambelli advised that initial training of
Navy pilots and crew takes four days but because the Air Force does
not use oxygen bottles in its training syllabus, Air Force personnel
require a day less. He then continued, “We do not only train Italian
Navy aircrew. We have a wide range of operators, like the Air Force,
Polizia, Carabinieri, Coast Guard and also Leonardo crew. Over the
years we have also trained aircrew from foreign countries. The
Hellenic Navy has been training in our facility for many years and
on 4 February 2019 we started a multi-year training program for
the Qatar Navy, who are in the process of acquiring the NH-90.”
The Italian Navy uses the modular egress training simulator (METS)
Model 40 from Canadian-based Survival Systems Limited, a state-
of-the-art system that was introduced in September 2018 and which
provides a wide range of possibilities for training. “It gives us the
ability to train many scenarios and we now also have the possibility
to train on the rescue hoist, something we could not do in the
past in a controlled environment. The beauty of the new system is
that it gives us the ability to change up to eight interchangeable
emergency escape exits, modifying the layout of the helo-dunker
to replicate the EH-101, NH-90 or AW-139 with just the one system,”
reported Cdr. Rambelli.
The MMI operates a total of 18 EH-101’s in three versions; six in