Toll Group signed a contract for eight AgustaWestland AW139 helicopters in a ceremony at the Avalon Airshow on Wednesday.
Toll will use the aircraft to service its newly-won NSW Air Ambulance contract to operate aeromedical retrieval operations from Sydney’s Bankstown Airport as well as Orange, Wollongong and Canberra. The new helicopters, for NSW’s newly formed Helicopter Retrieval Network’s southern region, will be delivered from later this year, with all eight set to be handed over by early 2016.
Under the deal Toll’s new base in Bankstown also will become an AgustaWestland Authorised training centre for the AW139 and will provide Australia’s first AW139 level D full-flight motion simulator. The base will include facilities for maintenance, crew training, the latest high-fidelity virtual reality crewman and integrated crew training simulator and a full helicopter underwater escape training facility.
Toll Resources & Government Logistics CEO David Jackson announced the news at the Avalon Airshow, saying the simulator will be the jewel in the crown of the new training centre: “This massive investment by Toll and NSW Health will redefine best practice in pilot training and safety.
“The simulator will train all Toll pilots working on the NSW Health aeromedical contract and other AW139 operators in NSW, Queensland and Victoria. It will have capacity to support any new government agency and private operator AW139 operations that cbeginmin the coming years in the Australasian region.”
Jackson says the technology used can be upgraded to support future AgustaWestland models such as the AW169 and AW189: “Being an authorised AgustaWestland training centre means Toll staff working for NSW Ambulance will be trained to international standards utilising the latest training programs, techniques and technology.
“Currently, the closest authorised AgustaWestland simulator is located in Malaysia, so new pilots-in-training have limited opportunity to gain the approximately 80 hours of training required.”
The state-of-the-art centre also will include an advanced underwater escape training complex and wet and dry winching practice towers, and is expected to be operating mid-to-late 2016.
More than 100 operational and engineering roles will be created in the lead-up to operations on the NSW Health contract in January 2017, Toll said.
