Emergency Helicopters | Exceptional Engineering | Free Documentary

for when you are saving lives and every second counts is when the time has come Rescue

helicopters

in extreme situations the helicopter and its team help save lives without our artificial respiration the patient would not survive saving lives in the smallest spaces the rescue helicopter The h145 is a flying intensive care unit equipped with the latest technology. Helicopter mechanics demand the highest demands in terms of materials and equipment. We have to concentrate a lot. There are 20 km of cable here. After 3 months, a new helicopter is ready to go and takes off. For the first time, the crew also has to function perfectly.

Air rescue. The staff receives special training. A constant stream of new training deployments and hundreds of hours in a flight simulator prepare crews for their often life-threatening missions. You are hanging there 15 M high. aerial errors can be deadly we are on our way when the alarm goes off and there is an

emergency

man and machine have to work like clockwork in the Bavarian city of Don Alver there is a huge helicopter factory here about 7,000 people work building four different types of

helicopters

For the police, the Air Force and the alpine rescue service, the H145 rescue helicopter is also built there.

The H145 has incredible maneuverability. It measures 13 m long and is fully equipped. It weighs 2.3 tons. 2,825 horsepower engines. Drives the main and tail rotor systems at a maximum speed of 250 kmph cruising altitude 5,500 M price depends on equipment up to 8 million this is how production of the h145 begins a high-performance computer-operated slitter cuts fiber sheets carbon and fiberglass with millimeter precision in a complicated process these materials are combined to create what is technically known as carbon composite, this ultralight and very resistant material gives the helicopter excellent flight characteristics. 200 employees work on the production of these carbon composite parts.

The sticky material is applied to a large mold layer by layer. This material is carbon fiber cloth. Individual fibers embedded in a resin matrix. Traditionally, aluminum was used in aircraft construction, but today the trend is increasingly towards the use of carbon fibers. Carbon is a very light material and of course the resulting helicopter is also lighter, so it can stay in the air for longer. This steel mold is used to create one of the doors of the h145. The doors are made entirely of ultra-light glass and carbon fiber material. First, an employee places the sticky fiber material into the steel mold.

The negative of the side door. This first layer. The fiberglass is followed by eight layers of carbon fiber fabric to create the extremely strong carbon composite. It is necessary to eliminate air pockets between the different layers. Air pockets would make the material porous and unstable. A silicone cover creates an airtight barrier. Seal so that a vacuum can be created in the steel mold. Hoses are placed that extract air from under the cover and also air between the layers of glass and carbon fiber. After vacuuming, a lid closes the mold and then it is placed in a special oven. a so-called autoclave the factory has five of these giant autoclaves and they are in operation 24 hours a day the largest has a diameter of 4 M and a length of 15 M in the autoclaves the composite parts are subjected to heat and pressure as standard The home pressure cooker works on the same principle and is, in principle, a small cave.

The 700 kilo steel form with the side door is waiting to be processed along with other parts. Now they introduce it into the enormous pressure chamber. An employee connects the compressed air hoses. which remove the air from the steel mold finally a giant lid seals the chamber inside the autoclave now there is a pressure of seven bar and a temperature of around 180° C the side door is subjected to these conditions for 10 hours and then the composite part It has been completed since the 90s. Helicopter companies are increasingly using composites instead of light metals such as aluminum. Carbon is extremely flexible, stable and, above all, very light.

This door is just one of the 94,000 carbon composite components the factory produces each year. Remove the piece from the steel mold. The side door is now finished. It's so light you can lift it with one finger, but not SE. You can see how light this carbon door is. An aluminum door would be noticeably heavier, that's the real advantage. from Composites a large part of the h145 is made of composite materials, so also, for example, the tail arm and the cockpit frame are a very large element and if you take into account that it only weighs 11 kilos, which It is extremely light, the final helicopter will weigh around 2,300. kilos, that is one of the reasons why the h145 is so extremely maneuverable and suitable for difficult flight operations, but the pilots must be well trained to handle them in Bon hangala 1,000 air rescue helicopters Pilots train special maneuvers with the h145 every year Hector is an experienced pilot with 5200 flight hours under his belt, like all other helicopters the pilots must receive a new certification twice a year, also the onboard examiner Andreas Schmidt starts the test, starts the 1650 engines horsepower, the destination is a clearing in a nearby forest.

Here they will pretend to pick up a patient. This helicopter can be switched to training mode at any time, allowing the examiner to do things like simulate an engine failure. The pilot has to react appropriately and demonstrate that he can fly the helicopter safely. They arrive quickly at the place. landing place a clearing of 30 x 30 m the pilot lands the helicopter there only a few meters of space between the rotor blades and the trees the turbulence here is unpredictable a brief stop on the ground the patient would already be on board he quickly leaves the area of danger the helicopter rises at a speed of 5 m/second the maneuver was successful now it returns to the base after 45 minutes Héctor prepares to land there are 320 tests like this per year just for the 160 addac air pilots Rescue 1 hour of combat time costs around €2,400 in this case the expenses are borne by the air rescue department of the Automobile Club of Germany the addac the exam is over what does the evaluator say?

Naturally, Hector has surpassed his control flight by successfully completing this rescue and

emergency

mission back to The Bavarian Helicopter Factory in Don Alver manufactures around 90 H145 helicopters a year. The rotor blades are also manufactured here. Just under 50 employees produce around 400 shovels a year by hand. The four main rotor blades rotate at more than 380 revolutions per minute and have to withstand tensile forces of up to 20 tons. One rotor blade has a length of more than 5 m and weighs around 40 kilos. The blades are made by hand using shapes. huge the first layer is fiberglass then comes three layers of carbon fiber in a resin matrix The so-called blade break is the part of the blade that is then attached to the head of the rotor.

During flight, extremely strong forces act here, which is why the specialists who build them place 24 individual layers of the specially used carbon fiber material here. long strands of fiberglass called rovings, you have to think of a ring as individual strands that lie next to each other covered with resin, then they are extremely strong in the direction of the tensile force and hold the entire rotor blade just right where it's supposed to be. The wick could easily be used to pull a large truck, there's no doubt about it, it's strong enough for the inside of the blade to be filled with a lightweight, rigid foam core.

This half of the rotor blade is now ready for further processing. The steel form is placed. In a special press the upper half is already in shape. The two halves are pressed together with a pressure of 200 bar at 135° C. After 11 hours the process is finished and the carbon rotor blade is ready to operate. Visual inspection looks good now. We take it to the crew workstation and QC will take a closer look at it. The blade passed the first optical check, but how does it sound? Two men carry the 40 kilo blade to a special test bench which they pick up when we hit the blade. to check if the erosion protection casing that you can see here, the light part, has adhered properly to the compound.

In the worst case, it could mean that the erosion protection casing becomes detached from the blade and possibly hits the helicopter with corresponding force, failing which damage will occur. it sounds nice and full, so to be sure, it took 3 years until Christian Eisenhofer could discern the fine differences in the sound; however, only those blades are approved for flight operations that have undergone a final CT scan. The CT scanner was originally developed. For medical use, it takes numerous x-rays of the rotor blade from different directions and assembles them into a multi-layer model, allowing experts to locate even the smallest defect in the material.

We create individual images with a distance of 25 mm and in the critical area. we have volume renders, which means around 400 images with 0.625mm spacing. The blade path is particularly critical as it is subject to extreme centrifugal forces during flight. There is a tensile load of up to 20 tons. Radiologist Rudolf Cup is looking for so-called delaminations, delamination occurs when the layers of fiberglass and carbon fiber in the blades start to separate, something dangerous when you are flying, that would mean that the rings become loose, the pilot suffers a imbalance in the machine because the path of the blades is softened and it is realized that the rule for the pilot an imbalance that is noticed in the stick means landing another critical area is just before the root of the blade is subject to a constant impact pressure there is a danger of fibers breaking here I can see a small bulge, we will measure it, for me it is 1.3 mm, which means I have to make a quality report and show it to the construction people and static.

This sheet goes through another quality control if it does not meet the high demands. It will be scrapped later The blades are firmly fixed to the rotor hub The main rotor with a diameter of 11 M rotates at a speed of up to 383 rpm Extremely strong centrifugal forces pull the star-shaped component The rotor hubs are made of metal Department High-tech cutting milling machines shape forged titanium blanks with an accuracy of 1 1,000 of a millimeter after reaching the middle of processing, we let the cube rest, the processing causes stresses to build up in the space rough and give them time to dissipate if we do not allow the material to rest, the stresses will only be released when we are finished and we will not be able to stay within tolerances.

The hub has to be absolutely round, so it is delivered after 10 days of rest. The 15 kg hub is finished. It is worth €25,000 for the main rotor blades. The next stop is the rotor test bench. Here the blades are balanced when they are have mounted the blades we let them run for about 15 to 20 minutes and then we look at the data up there. You can see that red thing at the top which is the telemetry transmitting the data to the control room. We also have a camera here and the camera measures the distance between the rotor blades during the flight from the safety of the control room the technicians increase the speed the telemetry system sends large amounts of test run data to the control room Technicians use that data to find and, if necessary, correct any weak points in this set of Jur Luli rotor blades.

Now balance the blades similar to a car tire. Achieving the perfect balance eliminates dangerous vibrations here on the rotor blade. These two parts are called tremors. Bending these two tremors influences the aerodynamic characteristics of the blade depending on how the engineer bends these two pieces of metal into the rotor. It will tilt during the flight this aerodynamic balance is extremely important for the helicopter to even start Jurgen Luli climbs on the elevator to reach the balance chamber of the rotor blades this is another place where you can change the center of gravity now you can see The Springs: The purpose of these springs is to push the adjustment weights to the front and then see these weights.

You can move these weights left or right to influence the dynamic behavior of the blade. We have the center of gravity of the leaves here on the leaf. depth and when I change these weights, it leans forward or back and 45 or 90 G are enough to do it. These four blades are now perfectly balanced and you can hear the moreThe precisely the blades follow one another, the quieter the sound. In the Bavarian town of Badz there has been a helicopter that can take off without blades since 2008. The Bavarian Alpine Rescue Team has a simulation center here where rescue professionals practice in a high-tech training room with 18 m how to deal with different Extreme situations.

On the high ceilings there is a practice helicopter attached to a complex system of rails and cables. The system is completely independent of the outside climate. Here the teams can fly 24 hours a day without using a single liter of fuel. Every year around 1,000 teams come. air rescue active here to practice how to deal with emergencies the training conditions in the room are incredibly realistic the helicopter has a number of special features a wind machine imitates the deafening sound and huge wind of the helicopter's main rotor h special stroboscopes simulate the sun shining through the rotor blades Examiner KL Ster is going to examine three rescuers with a dog.

The specialists are about to perform an important test. Each rescuer must be recertified once a year. I'm glad to see you here for the annual certification. You have everything with you. So, let's go. begins with the training the tension increases the winch operator gives the final instructions then the test begins for the rescuer Thomas tikel and his colleague until gelus this is just a practice but I am nervous even here in the simulator from which you are hanging 15 M in the air a mistake can be fatal. In today's scenario, this mountain climber is stuck on a rock wall.

She has a serious injury to her arm and cannot

free

herself. The rescue team gets on the helicopter the pilot takes off and places the 15 M Simulator on the victim the first alpine rescuer is lowered and uses a safe place to prepare the rescue bag the number two rescuer also goes down he has to rescue the victim and Pick it up safely off the wall. The winch rope it is hung on can be lowered a full 90m. How are you doing everything right? Yes, in a situation like this it is difficult for the rescuer to quickly assess the severity of the climber's injuries, but he carefully puts on the seat belt with a hand signal until Godus tells his colleague to put it in gear first. the winch the injured person is taken out of the danger zone the mountaineer is not yet ready to be transported reported for transport Tomas titil has prepared the rescue bag with the integrated vacuum mattress we have secured it here on the vacuum bed and now we are pumping air out of the bed the bottom becomes very rigid so that it can lie completely horizontally it would now be secured here close it and prepare it to be transported by helicopter the victim is now safe in the rescue bag the hook is lowered again and Tomas tikel gives the signal to start the winch the helicopter rescue winch can lift up to 270 kilos the alpine rescue team and the The winch operator maneuvers the Mountaineer inside the helicopter, but upside down, today's first small mistake, still will receive recertification.

I saw up there that it was a little complicated the way they put her on the helicopter. It is best to carry the patient feet first. So you now have your certification and we'll see you again for another test next year. The two alpine lifeguards now have their certification for another year and can continue saving lives in the mountains of Bavaria. The helicopter factory in Don Alvert in the main component. assembly employees are busy riveting the cockpit frame to the helicopter airframe the riveted joints are much more flexible than the screw or welded joints on the roof of the h145 they are installing a firewall the firewall is there to protect the material because the motor will be installed on the left and right here there are very high thermal loads and that overloads the material the two motors can heat up to 200° c it is not a problem for the firewall because the titanium melts at 1.6 68° on the side 50 employees are putting in electrical cables, depending on the equipment of the h145, which can take up to 18 dollars a day, several thousand meters of cable go into each helicopter, but the factory experts always maintain a clear view, you can't get out and form a large pile and simply throw everything at once, the roots of the cable bundles must be separated, where the cables should go, each gram in the wrong place has been carefully calculated, it changes the center of gravity and with it the flight behavior of the rescue helicopter the center of the complicated wiring is the main console in the cockpit the middle console is the B the center console is the base for all the wiring where all the equipment for the pilot and co-pilot goes this becomes very specific what equipment screens the pilot has at his disposal what type of client he is and what functions he needs, whether they fly on rescue missions or it is for private use, there are clear differences here, a monstrous task, thousands of connectors and connections must be installed correctly, we have to concentrate Actually, there are 20 kilometers of cables here and quite a few connections, it is important that we do not make any mistakes, otherwise there could be complications during the flight which, of course, would be detrimental to the pilot and even endanger his life.

After 3 weeks this h145 is fully wired here in the On the roof of the H145 there are two shaft turbine motors that drive the two rotors. Even if one of the 825 Hors engines failed in mid-flight, the helicopter would have no problem continuing on its way today in final assembly. The engines are going to be assembled. in the helicopter this despite the robust technology the employees must be very careful slowly and carefully the crane lifts the 130 kg engine into the air the shaft turbine is specially designed for helicopter propulsion this type of engine was used by first time in 1977 with Precision Precision, the mechanics placed the second engine next to the firewall, as you can see it is quite a tight fit because the firewall is in the way and of course there are cables and pipes as well.

The crane operator has to work slowly and with great concentration to get the engine in position and we have to make sure that we connect everything correctly, that we don't damage anything, that the engines work well, the helicopter now has 1650 horsepower mounted on At the rear, once both motors are connected, a drive shaft connects them to the rotor. Bushing a heat-resistant cover made of composite material seals the engine the h145 is now in the final stretch the tail arm is bolted to the helicopter the tail rotor has a diameter of 115 cm and for safety reasons is completely coated the inside the last pieces The employees are installing 11 of these interior wall pieces, then all the cables will be covered and this is what the basic configuration of the h145 looks like.

All the specific configurations for this helicopter are the narrow seat accessories that we see here. black fixtures from front to back the equipment board will be installed where medical technology is stored and secured up here there are fixtures for the ceiling rails where infusions can be hung the patient will lie here on this side or on the other side, which is the basic configuration of this helicopter, it takes the men 10 days to place the interior panels and adapt it to the client's needs. After just over 4 months, a new rescue helicopter worth 8 million leaves the hangar. About to make its first flight with a propeller lift, an employee takes the helicopter to its initial position on the factory airfield.

All helicopters built at Don Alvert make their maiden flight at the factory's large 170,000-square-meter proving ground. Habit Kisla and flight test engineer Maroh Hamas take off the new H145 for the first time. An optical verification is followed by the so-called ground test pilot. Kisla turns on both turbines and the rotor begins to spin without leaving the ground. All instruments. are monitored while the engines are running the values ​​displayed on the screens must meet very strict standards only once the helicopter has been proven to function perfectly are the pilots allowed to take off the helicopter factory employees have done everything possible to at this moment there is now a new h145 rescue helicopter flying through the air the test pilot performs an established protocol with mandatory maneuvers float forward, turn laterally around the vertical axis and with the nose down during these maneuvers the test flight engineer Mario hamus compares the data shown on the screens with the normative values ​​of the protocol, later in the rescue missions the helicopter will have to start flying and land in very difficult conditions this machine gets the best ratings the helicopter can now officially fly in the public airspace but cannot yet participate in any rescue mission.

All medical technical equipment still needs to be installed. The Simulation Center in the body. It's the moment of truth for alpine rescuer Martin Kutz and his 4-year-old search dog Konda. Both are avalanche rescue specialists and are about to practice descending. The important thing about this training is that we practice getting in and out when we're in the air, the wind, the weather, the noises, not knowing what a helicopter is, that's a really challenging thing for a dog when they have to work in completely different conditions. conditions that on the ground that is what we are training the mission starts slowly the helicopter rises Helicopters are not unknown to K, but she remains skeptical the background noise of the simulator is realistic and as loud as a real helicopter for the dog with its sensitive ears the noise is stressful examiner K monitors the mission from below and verifies that all processes are correct the pilot directs the cockpit to the correct position under the ceiling of the room we are now 14 m above the hallway floor and in only one moment we will reach the position where we leave, even if it is just training, it is still dangerous to get off the helicopter it is a dangerous moment and requires a lot of concentration, especially if there is an animal involved, the rescue team.

Now it is hanging 14 m above the floor of the room the winch operator lowers the two into the depths after an avalanche morning Kutch and cond would be lowered from a helicopter to search for survivors a situation in which a few seconds can make the difference for those buried under the snow today the rescue team only has very brief contact with the ground then the winch operator lifts the two up again returning on board it also worked well the dog and the human are back in the helicopter the dog shakes slightly but he's taking it pretty well.

To begin with, I'm a little scared. I have to go out again, although it worked quite well and in the air hanging from the winch everything was quite relaxed. The pilot lands the machine after 10 minutes. Kanda and Martin Kutz broke up. The K9 human rescue team has arrived. has been recertified thank you see you again next year at Don Al vert a new h45 took off from the ground for the first time and was thoroughly tested the machine has been approved for flight operations and will now be equipped with life-saving medical devices equipment currently There is nothing inside the machine other than the technical instruments necessary to fly it and two seats for the pilots 450 km away in zank Austine and the h145 has become a real rescue helicopter here they are specialized in installing the necessary interior accessories and Medical equipment first of all, everything except electricity is removed again.

The team lays out all the interfaces so they can install the specialized technology in the coming weeks. New analog and digital radio communication systems are installed. A weather radar. New software applications. In the cabin and search lights the rear door lock has been changed and can now be opened and closed with one hand. All the interior equipment has to be very robust and that has a price. Equipment like this has to be able to take a lot of punishment, take the surfaces of these seats for example, you have to be able to get blood or disinfectant from them in aviation, get something approved and tested for production, no matter what it is, it's expensive , so a seat like this can cost between 5 and 8,000 and the stretcher at a price of €30,000 is not exactly a bargain either for the stretcher the team installs a special rail system with quick release locks makes it easier to carry the patient arrives here with a stretcher and slides inside then he just needs to push it onto the rails, after the stretcher comes the central cabinet where the medicines and medical equipment will be kept, then the team places the seats for the doctor and the assistant, which can be easily put on and taken off thanks to the quick release fasteners, however their position inside the helicopter is precisely defined, they all have a specific mass in a specific position, the problem is that moving themmoves the center of gravity of the helicopter.

You can slide the seats back and forth on the rail, it's also very cool. very important and useful, they can rotate so that you have optimal access to the patient. It is also important that the doctor or paramedic can access the oxygen supply. €400,000, which is what the installation of the medical equipment costs. After 50 days, the helicopter costs now. a real rescue helicopter and can fly on your first mission rescue operations like the drf the german air rescue squadron flies more than 1,000 times a year from the emergency hospital in berlin this helicopter rescue team is preparing for its shift the team consists of a paramedic pilot and a doctor, the high tech helicopter has been in operation since 2016, this is an intensive care ventilator, then we have four readers, those are these syringe controllers that we use when medications need to be administered continuously, like in an intensive care unit.

Of course, we have a lot of oxygen on board, very important, they are stored in the back of the machine. Here we have a compact monitor with a Bluetooth interface, which means that the monitor itself can be undocked, we can carry it with us without any cables connected basically. we have a full mini pilot from the Intensive Care Unit Raa learned to fly in the army and has been with the Air Rescue Squadron since 1992 in the cockpit he receives all the important information. In this pop-up window we see the information that the control center sends us. possibly about the accident seen Mission scenarios a person trapped or someone has fallen out of a window or something, that's the kind of information that could appear on the screen here things that we can evaluate while flying to know what to expect possibly also information about the landing site the site is on a sports field next to the road it has been prepared not prepared police is it there all this is information that the control center sends us directly to the cockpit which receives the hospital coordination center Berlin emergency? an emergency call the patient has four syringe pumps okay inside okay and you still have to intubate yes okay yes okay and would you say it's a myocardial infarction or how would you describe it okay we're on the way we'll be with you'll be in a few 30 minutes, okay, thanks, bye, we received a call from a hospital outside of Berlin, in Ganen, one of their patients has to be transferred to the cardiac center here in Berlin, she is experiencing the so-called cardiogenic shock, you have to think.

In this way, the patient's heart no longer pumps, it can no longer support life, so she will have to be transferred to the cardiac center so that they can connect her to a cardiac support system. The patient's condition endangers her life. You have to move fast, agent 145 is already waiting on the hospital roof a few moments after the emergency call comes in the helicopter is already in the air the drf rescue team is usually called into action when it comes to life or death Bon hangala annually 1,000 pilots come here to receive specific training for situations like these in these gigantic helicopter simulators Pilots train to handle real emergencies all possible scenarios can be represented in these magical 12 million euro spheres we have a horizontal view from 240° vertical 180° in the database we have the entire globe within our reach on the high seas operations daytime operations night vision full range flight trainer Andreas Schmidt enters one of the simulators together with rescue pilot Hector already has 5,200 hours of flight under his belt, but part of his job is to keep training constantly.

The men enter the cabin of the simulator trainer. Schmidt has chosen a massive crash on the highway. The simulator is ready to go. It's time to concentrate as much as possible. Okay, so let's get going the maneuver begins at Coent airport the high-tech simulator very realistically imitates the movements of the h145 helicopter the pilot perceives a perfect illusion the internal LED projector displays landscapes and buildings generated from real aerial photographs quickly reach the place of the accident we are arriving again at that area where we cannot leave the valley so we will land the place of the accident is under a large bridge and is surrounded by high voltage power lines which means maximum vigilance for the crew the simulator moves towards below that means slowly descending the helicopter approaches the landing site in a field now the pilot is paying special attention to the rescuers on the ground, no one is allowed to enter the landing zone, but often pilots are also needed after the landing, especially if there are a lot of people injured, especially with the situation we just simulated, it may well be necessary for us to help, whether it's bringing support equipment to the doctor, that kind of thing can happen.

The flight simulators at Bon are so realistic that practice sessions in them count as actual flight time for the DRF air rescue team pilot. On the way to an emergency a patient is in danger of death Dr. Jansen and his team have to transfer her from a small hospital on the outskirts of Berlin to a cardiac center there is a patient who has experienced cardiogenic shock and has not yet been intubated, But for the flight he wants to breathe her through intubation. Ok, the helicopter cannot land at the hospital. They pick up the patient at a nearby Hort.

The woman's heart is beating weakly. She is in an artificial coma and we have to take her by plane to the cardiac center to operate on her. as soon as possible as much as possible together, the four rescuers load the patient into the helicopter as shake-

free

as possible yes, everything is fine. We can start? I bet the pilot takes off. It is 65 km to the heart center of Berlin. The helicopter travels up to 250 km a year. hour and you don't have to worry about traffic jams, it is the fastest way to get the patient to the cardiac clinic.

They are breathing her during the flight, if they didn't, she would die. The doctor and the paramedic are watching her carefully. she all the time good pressure is good medium pressure is good 50 medium pressure 70 readers are all running yes, so the patient is sedated with what we call analgesic, she is receiving medications to block the pain and so that she is not conscious anesthetic medication without our medication and without our respirator the patient would not survive this sick she is in less than 30 minutes the rescue team lands on the roof of the cardiac center the patient can now undergo her operation that will save her life this rescue helicopter performs more than 1,000 missions a year the helicopter and its The team has just saved a life and is already on its way to its next mission.

The H145 is a high-tech rescue helicopter. From the first assembly step to the finished helicopter, it takes 4 months. The flying Intensive Care Unit costs 8 million euros. Rescuers. on board they risk their own lives to help people in trouble the pilots go through complex training to be able to fly one of the most maneuverable rescue helicopters in the world Every year more than 100,000 rescue missions are carried out in Germany when the alarm sounds that take off with the mission of saving human lives