Medical marvels
The RAAF Institute of Aviation Medicine is constantly finding ways for aircrew to successfully battle the physical impact of flying, as LACW Simone Liebelt and Leesha Furse report.

Human factors specialist Mark Corbell keeps check on No. 77 Squadron pilot FLGOFF Bryce Solomon in the spatial disorientation demonstrator.

Photo by LACW Simone Liebelt

An AVMED instructor tests the navigation skills of aircrew members undergoing oxygen training in the hyperbaric chamber.

Photo by No. 92 Wing

The chamber.

Photo by No. 92 Wing

Avionics technician CPL Andrew Gardner conducts an explosive decompression.

Photos by LACW Simone Liebelt

Aircraft life support fitter CPL Billy Hangan fits a mask.

Aircraft life support fitter SGT Michael Johnson makes a cloth helmet for use in the decompression chamber.

Research officer MAJ Doug Randell dons night vision goggles to view a terrain model.

Avionics technician SGT Bill Jackson has a chat to students while setting up the hyperbaric chamber for a fast-jet familiarisation course.

Photo by LACW Simone Liebelt

Chief Instructor and acting CO SQNLDR Brett Oppermann monitors medical student Tuan Nguyen’s biomedical signs.

Photo by LACW Simone Liebelt

Pilot FLTLT Steve Howe discusses the motion sickness desensitisation flight profile with Dr Bhupinder Singh before take-off in a PC-9 for research.

Photo by LACW Simone Liebelt

The RAAF Institute of Aviation Medicine at RAAF Base Edinburgh.

Photo by No. 92 Wing

WGCDR Tracy Smart (now GPCAPT) with FSGT Tracy Dean.

Dr John Newlands and Dr Gordon Cable conduct a medical employment classification review.

THE RAAF Institute of Aviation Medicine (AVMED) at RAAF Base Edinburgh is committed to making the best of the “weakest link” in the aviation system – humans.

As each generation of aircraft is engineered to fly higher and faster than those before, crew that fly them have more challenges. The Institute’s staff help aircrew to push the level of human endurance in this environment.

About 24 highly specialised ADF and civilian personnel provide initial and refresher training in aerospace medicine to aircrew, health specialist officers, life support fitters and others.

About 500 tri-service personnel attend AVMED each year. Staff conduct other training at bases, including aviation medicine training for pilot trainees at Basic Flying Training School in Tamworth.

Staff also provide aviation medicine advice, check the health of aircrew applicants and conduct aircrew medical employment classification reviews. AVMED processes more than 300 reviews and 500 aircrew applicant medicals each year.

Pilots are rarely grounded – almost 97 per cent of the 1270 cases reviewed have returned fit pilots to flying duties since January 2000. For young pilots, contact with AVMED is one of the first steps towards a flying career.

AVMED is also renowned for its applied aviation research. The Institute’s staff have received acclaim for their work in fatigue, disorientation, aircrew performance, emergency egress, noise and vibration, cockpit contamination, night vision goggles, simulator sickness and aeronautical life support systems.

Doctors Bhupinder Singh and Gordon Cable recently received international recognition for their contribution to the discipline of aerospace medicine. This year has heralded the completion of a fouryear project to upgrade a hypobaric chamber to meet Australian Standards.

As part of this upgrade, the chamber has been fitted for Combined Altitude Depleted Oxygen (CADO) training. CADO is a method of hypoxia training developed in-house. It was introduced after a spate of decompression illness incidents in 2000-01.

ComCare deemed the risk of injury too hazardous and so CADO was devised.

Squadron Leader Brett Oppermann, the Chief Instructor and acting CO at AVMED, said before 2001 the simulator was set to 25,000ft “and students would be exposed to the rarefied air and learn what it feels like to be hypoxic and should [those symptoms] occur in their flying, they would be able to take the appropriate recovery action”.

“With this new technique we only take people to 10,000ft and we give them a special gas mix which is only 10 per cent oxygen and that simulates the same exposure as at 25,000ft without risk of decompression illness,” SQNLDR Oppermann said.

“It’s essentially a world-first; we’re the only nation to train in this way.” Another key piece of training equipment is the recently acquired Gyro II spatial disorientation demonstrator. It is a full-motion simulator that demonstrates the illusions and disorientation aircrew are likely to experience in helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, and enables them to practise their recovery actions.

SQNLDR Oppermann said spatial disorientation had been identified as a cause of many aviation accidents. “You and I are sitting at our desk subject to the force of Earth’s gravity – one G,” he said.

“With aircraft flying, that force of gravity, or that force of exposure, is not always directed in one dimension. This has an effect on the inner ear. It can cause people to feel disoriented.”

The demonstrator tries to “trick the inner ear and pilots are forced to rely on the instruments to fly the aircraft”. AVMED also offers hope to those prone to airsickness.

A motion sickness desensitisation program has been very successful, allowing students to adapt to the motion environment before being returned to flying to continue their training. About six students a year take part in this program that begins with controlled exposure to rotation, acceleration and deceleration and culminates in six sorties in a PC-9.

Human factors are cited as a major cause in about 80 per cent of aviation accidents and incidents. It’s Mark Corbett’s role, as a human factors specialist at AVMED, to provide advice and information on how humans interact as crews and with the machines they fly.

This knowledge is important to be able to design workstations, workstations, manage fatigue, provide simulation and training, and enhance crew performance in stressful situations. “This type of work is integral to achieving the highest standard of sustainable operations from the aviation domain,” Mr Corbett said.

“A day never goes by without something new and interesting appearing before me.” Aircraft accident investigations also attract AVMED’s attention. Staff provide medical, human factors, and technical support to investigating teams.

They also have a forensic role using the ADF disaster victim identification DNA repository. The DNA repository custodian is Major Doug Randell who is a keen advocate of the system. “Aircrew can volunteer a blood sample that is stored at AVMED in case victims need to be identified in an ADF aircraft crash in the future,” MAJ Randell said.

“These samples can spare families additional trauma.” An engineer, aircraft life support fitters and avionics technicians support AVMED’s roles.

They operate the two hypobaric chambers, two spatial disorienation demonstrators, deliver course lectures, service equipment and provide technical and computing support to research projects.

They also conduct wet drill and helicopter winching awareness familiarisations for health specialists and provide basic operator instruction on using night vision goggles.

AVMED has continuously strived for new heights in its aviation medicine work since its beginnings at RAAF Base Point Cook in 1944, where it was Aviation Medicine Flight at the Central Flying School.

It moved to RAAF Base Edinburgh in 1995. Its motto “Salus per scientiam” (safety through knowledge) has ensured aircrew are better prepared than ever to meet the physiological challenges of flight and that ADF health professionals aid their safe flying.

 

 

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