Massachusetts State Police chooses Helicopter Flight Training Center as training partner

The Massachusetts State Police Air Wing is the largest and most comprehensive full time public safety aviation unit in New England, responding to more than 1,900 mission requests annually. The primary duty aircraft is the EC135T2+, and the division recently chose the Helicopter Flight Training Center, a Metro Aviation company, as its training partner for simulator training.

“Metro Aviation has enjoyed a great relationship with the Massachusetts State Police as their completion partner, and now we are excited to bring them over to the training center for state-of-the-art training opportunities,” said Metro Aviation President Mike Stanberry. “Simulator training is vital. Some of the state police pilots were able to test the simulator when they were last here to pick up a completed aircraft, and they realized first hand what a difference it can make.”

Pilots and their Tactical Flight Officers (TFO) will begin training in the EC135 Level D Full Motion Simulator and the AS350 Level 7 flight training device in November. “The training will consist of normal and emergency procedures, as well as inadvertent IMC,” said Air Wing Commander Robert Smith. “Metro did the EC135 completions for our fleet, and we are now using the Helicopter Flight Training Center for our simulator training.” The department made the funding available partially in response to the NTSB recommendation that law enforcement crews receive IIMC simulator training.

The Helicopter Flight Training Center offers dry-lease of its three simulators: an EC135 Level D Full Motion Simulator, AS350 Level 7 Flight Training Device and a Bell 407/GX Level 7 Flight Training Device. In addition, the training center hosts factory maintenance training for Turbomeca and Pratt & Whitney, as well as monthly communication specialist training in the CommLab.