National Safety Council of Australia Reviewed

The correct title of the Council is in fact the National Safety Council of Australia, Victorian Division. The expanding aviation side of the organisation is known as the NSCA Emergency Service Aviation. The NSCA is not a new company for it was formed back in 1927. Its charter is to promote safety in all walks of life and achieves this by providing a diverse range of services to Industry, Government and the general community.

Until the early 1960’s the NSCA was only in Victoria however there are now divisions in other states but these are only in safety consultancy roles, not aircraft operations as is the Victorian Division. Since the early days of the NSCA its main role has been that of a consultant to Industry in the area of job safety. This it achieved by running training courses, safety consultant services and maintaining industrial emergency services.

In the late 1970’s the NSCA became heavily involved in the Industrial belt of Gippsland, Victoria, and it was here that the air wing filled a void and commenced operations with a Hughes 500 helicopter as an air ambulance in order to be able to transport to hospital any industrial accident victim. When one looks at the wide spread of operations of forestry, electrical power and oil production in the region it is easy to see how industrial accidents can and do occur.

From an industry point of view it made more sense for one organisation to provide the services that the NSCA now provides rather than each industry trying to set up its own safety division, at considerable cost, and still not achieve the end result required. Changes in government and the attitude of unions has also placed more emphasis on safety in the work place in recent years and thus the NSCA moved into an era of increasing demand for its services.

Bases

At the present time the NSCA has some 180 personnel employed across Australia including the bases at Latrobe Valley, Townsville and Wollongong.

Included in the staff listings are 4 full time doctors, 35 pilots, 30 para-rescue officers, an admin staff of around 25 as well as an engineering staff capable of carrying out all work on the airframes and engines of the aircraft operated by the Council. Extensive equipment and spare parts holdings, for both aircraft and other plant, are held at the Latrobe Valley bases in order that the Council can maintain its state of readiness day or night, 365 days of the year.

The bases at Townsville and Wollongong have some 15 personnel at each base and are fully equipped to handle any SAR situation on land or water in that area.

Each of the three bases, Latrobe Valley, Townsville and Wollongong, have a SAR radius of action of up to 500 miles whereby Para-rescue officers and equipment can be delivered outside the range of helicopters offshore in the shortest possible time using fixed wing aircraft.

The Townsville base was opened in December 1983 and the Wollongong base in March 1985. Statistics have shown that North Queensland has one of the busiest SAR regions in Australia. While most of South Australia, including Adelaide, is covered by a Kingair based at Latrobe Valley there is an area not adequately covered in Northern NSW/Southern Queensland. Consideration is at present being given to the establishment of a base in that area thus giving full NSCA SAR coverage of Australia’s Eastern seaboard.

Having shown that the NSCA can run an effective first class SAR operation has resulted in the Council receiving invitations and requests to operate a base in Western Australia however to date no decision has been made regarding that area.

The registered office of the NSCA is in Melbourne and includes a modern training auditorium and associated facilities. The main location is at Morwell where at the airport there are the hangars, workshops, administration and an operations centre of the Emergency Service Aviation. In Morwell itself, in a large warehouse type building there is the Underwater Training Centre, which includes a helicopter underwater escape trainer, Remote Sensing Unit, Industrial Emergency Services, Workshops, Audio Visual Unit, Photographic Lab, Emergency Hyperbaric Unit and Parachute Riggers Loft.

While the NSCA has only been in the building some three years it has already outgrown it and commenced to move some of its operation to facilities at West Sale Airport some few miles to the east.

The structure of the NSCA is an interesting one. At the head of the organisation is the General membership comprising public bodies, companies and private members from which 31 are elected to the State Council. From the Council an Executive Committee of a President and four Vice Presidents are elected, all who serve in an honorary capacity.

The Executive Director is the first paid position of the NSCA and below him comes a Deputy Director. From here the corporate structure branches out to an Administration Manager and an Operations Manager and various sub Managers responsible for the components that make up the NSCA such as Workshops, Underwater Training, Aviation Service and Pararescue, etc.

Funding of the NSCA is achieved by an annual fee levied on the General Membership plus a charge for services used. In the year 1984 turnover exceeded $11 million and it has been reported that for 1985 this turnover is in the area of $20 million.

Considering the cost of men and equipment and the NSCA operation these are not unreasonable figures.

Of the annual income ‘cake’ some 21% comes from Forest and Fire Services, 14% Search and Rescue, 17% Remote Sensing, 15% from Industrial and Emergency Services, 11% Underwater Training and 12% Training and Audio-Visual.

Of fees for services some of the companies and organisations that have used the NSCA facilities are APM, the SEC of Victoria, Forests Commission, ESSO, CSR, Dept of Aviation and Dept of Transport (SAR), the Royal Australian Navy, RAAF and even several Television Stations as they put their helicopter crews and regular passengers through the helicopter underwater escape trainer (in fact an old Bell Jetranger cabin section!).

The services that the NSCA offers are many and varied. First and foremost are the Health and Safety Training courses as well as supply of Audio Visual material (films, photographs, slides) and Consultant services to Industry. On the aviation side there is the Air Ambulance, Search and Rescue (over land and water), fire bombing and the newly developed Para-rescue teams, particularly valuable for off-shore rescue.

Another service is Remote Sensing that is used during bushfires and Search and Rescue. The Infrared cameras can detect changes in heat patterns and relay this to the base station or to personnel on the ground. This has proved a valuable tool during the bushfire season.

Other services are the Industrial Emergency Services, which cover anything from attending to industrial fires to administering first aid and the Underwater Training Centre. The UTC operates courses in helicopter escape training and training professional divers in advanced skills. Of particular interest is the Hyperbaric or Decompression Unit. For a diver suffering the bends use of this unit can mean the difference between life and death. A large chamber is at the Morwell base and recently the NSCA commissioned an air-transportable two-person unit that can be carried in NSCA aircraft.

All of these services could be supplied by government however considering the initial outlay involved and effort required to both get a similar organisation up and running it is as well that the NSCA offers these services to complement but not compete with other bodies such as the Police, Forest Service and General Aviation.

When looked at with a critical eye it is apparent that the NSCA in fact leads the way.

Aircraft

Even for regular watchers of the NSCA the turnover in its aircraft fleet has to be seen to be believed.

Over a period of only a few short years the Council has had a number of different fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft types including Hughes 500, Bell Longranger, Beech Baron, Beech Queenair, Nomad, Beech King Air, Bell 205, 212 and 412 helos and is presently trialling a Dornier Do. 228 and a MBB Bo105 helicopter.

Two things are apparent with the aircraft acquired. Most are not new and as a result have been purchased in reasonable condition for a lot less than new list price with resultant considerable savings. The second thing is that the machines have been acquired to fill a need and only kept while that need is current or until better more suitable equipment becomes available.

The new Dornier Do. 228 is an example. Taken on strength on the 25th October at a formal handing over ceremony the Dornier is to be evaluated, on behalf of the Australian distributor of the type, for a six month period. Like the older Nomad, the Dornier offers STOL type capability but has faster (50kts +) point to point speeds and greater capacity than the Nomad. At the end of the six month period a decision will be made as to whether a Dornier replaces the last two NSCA Nomads.

The NSCA fleet at present comprises 5 Beech King Air 200C’s, 2 Bell 412’s, 2 Bell 212’s, one Dornier DO. 228 and 5 Bell 205A’s, plus a Bo. 105 helo which is presently on trial. Two of the Bell 205A’s, VH-UHN and VH-UHP, had just been acquired having previously been used by Esso, at nearby Longford, on oil rig support duties. As Australian Aviation went to press it was understood that the NSCA was about to acquire a further 5 Bell 205A’s in South East Asia however not all of these are expected to be refurbished and operated here.

The Bell 212’s and 412’s being twin engined are used on SAR work, the NSCA is quite adamant that overwater operations require twin engine aircraft, while the single engine Bell 205A’s are used on fire fighting duties. These helicopters are fitted with 1360 litre belly tanks made by Connair, of Abbotsford, British Columbia, which is Canada’s largest aerial fire fighting operator. This use of Connair tanks has resulted in close ties between the two operators with Bell 205A VH-NSJ having been sent to Canada to assist Connair during the Northern Hemisphere summer. Beech King Air VH-NSE also went to Canada to work with Connair which made use of the unique Remote Sensing equipment installed in the aircraft to map active fire fronts and the location of spot fires that may endanger forests and towns. It is understood that Connair are, for the first time, to send to Australia one of their Bell 205A’s for use by the NSCA during the Australian fire season. This seasonal positioning of aircraft would appear to be what all aircraft operators wish to achieve, full utilisation of their machines regardless of season and could well see even closer ties forged between Connair and the NSCA.

Of the Bell 412’s there is one abnormality to the fleet and that is VH-NSP, based at Latrol5e Valley, it is permanently assigned, as an air ambulance, to the Latrobe Valley Ambulance Service. It is the supply of an aerial ambulance helicopter that first saw the NSCA aviation wing come into being and this is maintained in spite of both the high cost and the criticism from vested interest sections of the General Aviation industry.

From a practical point of view the aerial ambulance helicopter makes a lot of sense. The Latrobe Valley area has three major industries in electrical power, oil production and forestry. It a worker was to suffer an accident at one of these sites and require hospital treatment in Melbourne the big Bell helo can land and pick up the patient on site and then transport that person direct to the doors of the city hospital in a very short time. If the fixed wing Air Ambulance Service were to be used an aircraft would have to come from Melbourne and the injured person taken by ambulance from the accident site to the Latrobe Valley Airport, by air to Essendon Airport and then by yet another ambulance to hospital. All in considerably more time than the helicopter. While all the other NSCA aircraft are painted yellow and black the air ambulance helicopter remains in a grey and white colour scheme more akin to its air ambulance role. Full details of the NSCA fleet were published on page 24 in the November 1985 issue of Australian Aviation.

People

A lot of the personnel of the NSCA are recruited on the basis of the specialist skills that they have to offer be they an engineer, pilot, diver, photographer, consultant etc. Para-rescue officers and parachute riggers are two of several occupations in which the NSCA has taken raw recruits and trained them to the required high standard. Flight crew of the NSCA have in the main come from the services, including those of New Zealand, however the Council has now commenced to train some of its pilots from scratch. These new trainees and para-rescue officers are put through extensive physical and psychological tests to ensure that they will be able to carry out all that is required of them after training and are not a wrong appointments who will drop out part way through a long and expensive training course.

The Council has received any number of applications for employment from people wanting a position with the NSCA that is more than a little different to the average 9 to 5 job. The end result is an extensive data tile of potential staff. As the Council is very selective on staff appointments it is now in a position to be able to contact only the best possible people as the need arises. One thing is apparent and that is that the NSCA wants only people who can accept discipline and work as a member of a team. Cowboys are not required.

Attitude

While gathering material for this article several things were very obvious to Australian Aviation. The first was that while almost all personnel wore the light green NSCA uniform they had a different air of discipline about them than a military service. There was a distinctive cheerful atmosphere of a team waiting to be called onto the field or in this case a job.

It has been said in some quarters that the NSCA had links or is even an arm of the likes of the CIA etc. One can only chuckle at these suggestions for at both the Latrobe Valley Airport base and the Morwell facility there was an all-doors-are-open invitation extended to Australian Aviation. Nowhere could one find steel-eyed gung-ho types in evidence, ready to carry out another clandestine mission, such as one would expect to find at a secretive military base.

Operations at Bright

The NSCA is quick to respond to improve the service that it operates, and not just in the area of obtaining newer or more suitable aircraft. Such a situation came about as a result of a review of NSCA involvement in controlling bushfires in N-E Victoria in late 1984 when the football oval at the Bright High School was used as a helipad and base by more than a dozen ‘copters for several weeks.

Refuelling of the machines was from a small tanker. The review of the Bright operations resulted in a very much larger 36,000-litre fuel tanker being obtained in order to ensure the availability of large quantities of autur at future field deployment operations such as Bright. The Council also operates several Mercedes Benz Unimog 4 x 4 tankers but of a much smaller capacity. It is of note that the NSCA was using the Unimog before it entered service with the Australian Army.

Bright also showed need for a better operations centre than the standard caravan then being used. The end result of this was the conversion, in the NSCA Latrobe Valley workshops, of a shipping container to a large capacity mobile operations centre with both adequate internal space and windows that face out onto the helipad. One could make the comment that if this was a public service organisation the tanker and ops centre would still be at the ‘calling tenders’ stage!

The operations at Bright also brought home the fact that to be fully effective as an aerial fire fighter, be it water bombing or inserting ground personnel, that organisation had to have a trained and prepared ground crew and equipment in order to be able to back up and maintain in-field services away from base for several weeks.

Summary

The last few years has seen an enormous expansion in the search and rescue industry in Australia and, as certain events have shown, rightly so. What were part time we’ll-give-it-a-try type operations have now passed to full time trained and equipped professional civilian organisations.

At the very head of these organisations, one must place the National Safety Council of Australia whose equipment, training and standards are the very best available in the country today. The fact that the NSCA is a non-government, non-profit organisation gives it an independence and forward planning ability that allows it to carry out its charter of promoting safety in all walks of life.

It is also safe to say that in the near future the arrival of a safety yellow aircraft of the NSCA will be a welcome sight to an untold number of Australians in distress. These are the people for whom the service was designed to cater for and who will be grateful it exists.