In the course of the preparations for a new all-weather capable Rescue Helicopter, the AW169-FIPS, the Swiss Rescue Operator Rega conducts different flight and navigation test this week with a AW169 of HeliService in Switzerland.

On Monday, August 17th, 2020, pilots from Rega flew a Leonardo AW169 from the North Sea in Emden, Germany to Switzerland. During the test week, different tests were conducted in order to gather experience on the aircraft, and to go through some standard procedures of Rega and thus prepare for the AW169-FIPS in operation. Those tests included for instance the testing of equipment when operating the hoist, the test of procedures at the different bases, as well as the ground operations at those very bases. Further, and key were, the gathering of experience of the helicopter at flight as well as when hoisting. In the course of the week a number of IFR approaches were conducted with the help of the newly developed ARIOS system.