A new navigation system developed by Dartmouth-Hitchcock medical center is allowing the hospital’s helicopters to fly in more challenging weather throughout New Hampshire and Vermont.
The Dartmouth-Hitchcock Advanced Response Team recently won Federal Aviation Administration approval for the final phase of its low-level Instrument Flight Rules plan, which connects 30 hospitals in New Hampshire and Vermont and allows the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Advanced Response Team helicopters to fly over more difficult terrain and in worse weather than previously allowed.
The hospital spent six years mapping the region using GPS technology and creating a series of routes pilots can follow using instruments only. The plan is similar to what commercial airlines use to fly in and out of large airports, but the medical helicopters fly at much lower altitudes.
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