When Josh left a comment and mentioned he’s flying MEDEVAC helicopters for the US Army, I could not resist but ask him if he would accept to talk about this mission here. He did, and you can learn more about some of the most extreme flying conditions ever. Thank you Josh for taking the time to share – you do a tough job, helping the others, and you do it with passion.

Before you read more, here is a formal warning to make sure that things are clear with the Army. The statements made within this post are Captain Joshua Thompson’s own personal statements and not meant to represent an official response or viewpoint of the US Army.

Can you introduce yourself, talk a bit about who you are, your job, your role in the team, your flight experience, … ?
Vincent, first I’d like to thank you for your interest! My name is Joshua Thompson and I’m the Executive Officer and Operations Officer for the US Army Air Ambulance Detachment at Fort Irwin, CA which is also known as the National Training Center.  I’m a Captain in the Medical Service Corps branch of our Army and have been serving my country for a little over seven years.

As a commissioned officer I wear two hats in the course of my duties.  The first being a leader of Soldiers and officers who’s primary responsibility is the 24/7 MEDEVAC operations, making sure the mission is never dropped.  The second is being a pilot in command for the organization.  As a pilot I hold an FAA Commercial Instrument Rotorcraft and Private Single Engine Land rating.  I’ve flown just a hair over a thousand hours counting my civilian fixed wing time and I’ve got about 250 hours of combat time in Iraq along with a hundred or so hours of flight time spent in the No-Fly-Zone corridors between North and South Korea.  As an Army pilot I’ve been privileged to be able to be Deck Landing Qualified which is usually reserved for our Navy brethren and made deck landings in the Yellow Sea and in the Gulf of Thailand.  I’m qualified in the UH-1, UH-60, and the LUH-72 Lakota (EC-145) which is the Army’s newest helicopter.

How did you come to MEDEVAC / Rescue ? Was it your dream job, which did life circumstances drive you there?
As for how I got to where I am today it was all kind of a happy circumstance.  My father was a pilot and I grew up around airplanes and helicopters.  This led me to pursue an Aerospace Engineering Degree at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Florida campus.  I really did not want to leave college with a bunch of student loans so I sought out and was awarded an Army ROTC scholarship.  I knew that I wanted to fly so I listed Aviation and Medical Service Corps (MSC) as my branch choices since they are the only two branches that send officers to flight school.

Upon graduation I was assessed into the Medical Service Corps and then applied for flight training.  As an MSC you train first in field medical services and then become an aviator second.  Once you complete flight school you’re known as an Aeromedical Evacuation Officer and are trained in the art of evacuating patients from the point of injury through the theater level hospital systems back to the Continental United States (CONUS).  Once you complete your training you are assigned to an operational MEDEVAC unit.

To help you better understand our mission here I’d like to first tell you a little bit about the National Training Center (NTC).  The NTC website states: “The NTC trains the transformed Army by conducting force-on-force and live-fire training for ground and aviation brigades in a joint scenario across the spectrum of conflict, using a live-virtual-constructive training model, as portrayed by a highly lethal and capable Opposing Force and controlled by an expert and experienced Operations Group.  The brigade and its joint partners use the full complement of its combat, combat support and combat service support systems in an expanded NTC maneuver area that has multiple urban operations sites and portrays the complexity and human dimension of the modern battlefield.  Rotational training is supported by modernized and fully capable joint organizations, facilities and equipment. NTC has a post-mobilization mission as a center capable of accepting, training, and deploying divisions or separate brigades.”

In plain English this means that the NTC is the last stop for a brigade that is on it’s way out the door to a combat zone.  Before any unit goes overseas on a deployment they come here first.  What they see and experience here is an amazing and very realistic replica of what they are going to see when they actually enter Iraq or Afghanistan.  The rotational units train as they fight which means they use real bullets, real artillery, and there are real civilians and bad guys (OPFOR) in the training scenarios.  For us as a MEDEVAC unit that means that we have no shortage of real injuries.

The Air Ambulance Detachment is responsible for conducting safe operation of real world MEDEVAC in support of rotational and tenant units conducting operations at NTC, as well as MEDEVAC support for Fort Irwin and the surrounding communities.  We conduct medical evacuation and search and rescue missions in day, night, night vision goggle (NVG), and hazardous weather conditions.  We have a special proficiency in rescue hoist and desert mountain operations.  We also perform missions in support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) space shuttle recovery program.  When asked by the civilian community we provide assistance as needed in the event of state and national disasters.

I guess that you operate in almost all conditions. What kind of equipment do you use to facilitate that (NVG, GPS navigation, thermal imagery, …) ? Are there any no-go conditions ?
We pride ourselves in accomplishing the mission and doing it safely.  To facilitate the safe accomplishment of the mission we use NVG’s, GPS navigation, and a special curriculum of flight instruction and technique known as Desert Mountain Qualification or DMQ.  Most pilots are aware of the dangers involved when flying in mountainous terrain, however, add to that the 40-70 knot winds that the Mojave is known for and brown out conditions that are common in desert environments, all while flying with Night Vision Goggles and you create a situation with the potential for many problems to arise.  In conjunction with environmental factors, additional considerations for our pilots include deconflicting airspace with attack and fighter aircraft, artillery fires, and ground units maneuvering within the training area.  When flying with us the name of the game is “situational awareness.”  If you can’t understand and create a mental picture of the environment that your operating in then you cannot do it safely.

Another part of our mission is transferring patients from the base hospital to larger medical centers in the Los Angeles basin which is home to some of the world’s busiest airspace.  This requires a strong proficiency in instrument flight since the area is regularly weathered in due to strong onshore flow from the pacific ocean.  Believe it or not this is one of the few area’s where we actually have no-go conditions.

We’re currently flying the LUH-72 Lakota and the aircraft is not equipped with any kind of anti-ice/de-ice systems.  As you’re aware this means that we won’t fly into visible moisture when the freezing level is below zero.  What makes it difficult for us are the Santa Ana Mountains which are located between Fort Irwin and the Los Angeles basin and exceed 11,000 feet in altitude in places.  Many missions have been turned down due to icing.

What were the worst conditions you ever operated in ? How about hostile terrain ?
I’m sure that there are those that would disagree with me but I think that the NTC is probably some of the worst conditions that I’ve ever operated in.  We call ourselves “Desert DUSTOFF” and true to our name just about every landing that we make out here is a dusty, dirty, zero visibility brown out landing.  The dust here at Fort Irwin has the consistency of finely milled flour from the continuous flow of military vehicles throughout the training area.  I never experienced a dust landing in Iraq like we have here.  To give you and idea of how bad it is, we were the first Army unit to be equipped with the LUH-72 and we had our first engine failure at only 150 hrs total time on the new aircraft due to ingestion of dirt and dust.  Our small six aircraft detachment drove American Eurocopter to design an inlet barrier filter system for the helicopter.  The environment here is so hard on the aircraft that we’ve had to replace a brand new set of tail rotor paddles after only 45 minutes of flight time due to erosion.

Getting back to your questions, I’ve flown MEDEVAC in both peace time and combat and there is no greater sense of honor, mission accomplishment, and sense of purpose than flying our Wounded Warriors in theater.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great feeling to help someone who was injured in a car accident or transfer a patient who’s on their death bed, but when you’re picking up one of your fellow Soldiers who’s been injured in Combat you have a gut sense of accomplishment.

From the time your unit is alerted, what is your start-up time ?
From the time our unit is alerted, our start up time is less than 10 minutes.  We strive for five, but if weather is questionable a departure is always proceeded by a check with Air Force meteorologists.

What kind of training do you go through ? How can we get trained for such specific and demanding kind of flying ?
The Army trains its aviators at Fort Rucker, Alabama.  Flight school is a year long school that consists of several phases.  The first phase is dunker and SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) training.  This phase allows the Army to weed out any weak candidates prior to spending a good bit of money training them to fly.  SERE especially will bring any psychological issues to light immediately.

The second phase is known as IERW or Initial Entry Rotary Wing training.  IERW consists of two sub-phases, Primary and Instruments.  This is for all essential purposes the FAA equivalent of private and instrument ratings.  The biggest difference in the Army’s training from the FAA equivalent is the focus on crew coordination or CRM as it’s known in the civilian world.  The military likes redundancy and the best redundancy system is a second pilot and crew members.  The hardest part is making it an efficient system.

The third phase is called Basic Combat Skills (BCS) or the Contact phase.  In this phase aviators are trained on terrain flight, nap-of-the-earth (NOE), terrain flight navigation, basic tactics, evading enemy fires, and how to respond to emergency procedures when flying tactical.  The last bit is pretty exciting… think about having an engine failure when your skids are inches above the tree tops, an autorotation takes on a whole new form.

The forth phase is nights where aviators first encounter and learn to operate with night vision goggles (NVG).  The Army has a saying that we own the night and this is where it all starts.  Everything becomes much more complex with the use of NVG’s, especially navigation.

The fifth and final phase is the Advanced Qualification Course or AQC which is where pilots learn their advanced aircraft and its systems.  Pilots in the Army can be assigned to the UH-60 Blackhawk, OH-58D Kiowa Warrior, CH-47 Chinook, and the AH-64 Apache.

The only way I know of that someone can obtain similar training that creates an aviator with such a complete skill-set is through the military.

You mentioned the NASA shuttle recovery program. What is your role in this context ? Did you already get engaged ?
We have what NASA calls the “SAVE” mission.  Any time the shuttle lands at Edwards Air Force Base we are tasked to support with MEDEVAC aircraft.  We are there for any contingency that may arise whether it be a search and rescue or the transport of an astronaut should something happen to them.  As you can imagine there are a multitude of things that can go wrong when reentering the earths atmosphere as the space shuttle program’s history has shown.  Our crews are trained to locate and transport the astronauts and our medics and flight surgeons have special training on how to deal with the astronauts space suits and the special considerations that need to be know about the physiological changes that occurs post space flight.