Making helicopter flying safer: Safety Seminar in Egelsbach

Claude Vuichard, winner of the HAI Safety Award 2018, has a goal: from 2025, there should be no more fatal VORTEX accidents. The participants of the first nationwide Vuichard Helicopter Safety Seminar organised by Leocopter Air Services and Heli Transair in Egelsbach feel how important this is to him in every second of the lecture. Vuichard shows pictures and videos, he analyses causes of accidents and explains how they could probably have been avoided: "I developed the technique more than 30 years ago, its effectiveness has been confirmed by test pilots worldwide."

In his seminar, Claude Vuichard talks about autorotation techniques, avoiding flying into lines or even dynamic rollover, among other things. He emphasises that the cause of very many accidents in helicopter flying is the so-called "negative transfer": A reflex learned for a certain manoeuvre is mistakenly transferred to another manoeuvre.

"The safety seminar with Claude Vuichard is an absolute success for all participants and also for our own pilots and flight instructors," explains Jan Veen, training manager at Heli Transair. Dirk Herr, the managing partner, adds: "As Heli Transair, we want to make our contribution to improving safety in helicopter flying. That's why we are the first company in Germany to offer the seminar and we want to repeat it."

Among the enthusiastic participants of the Vuichard Safety Seminar in Egelsbach is Peter Möller, Chairman of the European Helicopter Association (EHA). For him, too, the seminar makes an important contribution to improving safety: "We still have too many fatal accidents that are always the same." Möller says he is glad and grateful that Claude Vuichard is so committed to improving the situation. And further: "I very much appreciate that Claude will also make his knowledge and experience available to an interested group of pilots in a course at EUROPEAN ROTORS."