Photo By Jay Mann | The Future Medevac Cabin Technology Demonstrator, a modified 20-foot CONNEX configured...... read more read more
Fort Novosel Soldiers got to give feedback on the Future Medical Evacuation Cabin Technology Demonstrator, a system that will help define the future of Army medical aircraft Feb. 13.
The FMC-TD is a containerized evaluation system designed to support the development of the interior layout of the Army’s next line of Medical Evacuation aircraft, in this case the Future Long Range Assault Aircraft. While the Army has selected the Bell V-280 Valor for this role as part of the Army's modernization and transformation efforts, details of the aircraft are still in the design phase, giving the Soldiers a chance to influence what the final product will be.
“The Future Long Range Assault Aircraft is still being designed,” said Maj. Nicholas Tony, assistant product manager for MEDEVAC with Program Executive Office – Aviation. “So we still have time to determine exactly what the interior of that MEDEVAC cabin will look like… we still have the opportunity to shape the future of FLRAA MEDEVAC.”
Part of this development is determining how best to lay out the interior of a MEDEVAC aircraft. For this the FMC-TD was built to match the new aircraft, which includes features the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter doesn’t, like a larger cabin, and a new modular rail system. These rails allow equipment, from seats to storage to litter racks for carrying wounded Soldiers, to be easily reconfigured.
“The way that we have this cabin developed is we have all these C-tracks throughout the cabin and that lets us be completely modular. This is the cases that we have come up with but if we wanted to, we could reconfigure this entire cabin,” said Cory Kopa, an industrial engineer at Naval Air Warfare Center, Aircraft Division specializing in cargo and special operations.
Depending on the configuration the system can support up to six patients as well as mount patient monitoring systems, equipment storage, and other utilities for supporting wounded and sick personnel.
While having a system that can be reconfigured is good, finding out the configuration the Soldier needs is better. To accomplish this the FMD-TD is being taken to various installations around the country, including Fort Novosel, to get Soldiers to try out different layouts and configurations and find out what works best for them. For the evaluation, Soldiers from Fort Novosel were brought in and used the FMD-TD for two full day events, with the FMD-TD reconfigured each day. The Soldiers could then compare the configurations and critique them.
“I really enjoyed the experience of going through it and being able to see what works, and what doesn’t work, and what might need some more touch ups,” said 1st Sgt. Kathryn Asurmendi, a Department of Aviation Medicine 1st Sgt. “I’ve never been able to influence what equipment I’ll be expected to use in the future, so I think this is a great opportunity for flight medic and enroute care providers to provide their feedback.”
The program plans on collecting feedback from over 100 Soldiers from six different installations, with Fort Novosel being only the second installation to take part.
Already the tests are yielding important results about how best to place a litter in an aircraft and the features the new system have to ensure the paramedic can access the parts of the patient they need most access to, namely the head and chest.
“I’m a big fan of the capability of being able to pull out the litter pans like they are drawers. Having that capability, being able to pull them out and assess and do my interventions, I was really impressed," Asurmendi said. “I was like ‘Wow, I wish I had this on my last two deployments'."
As the collection of this data goes forwards, a final picture of where best to place the various tools, storage, and the patients themselves can be found before the final aircraft is even delivered. This will allow the Army to bring a modern life-saving system to the battle that’s already saving time and money by having everything at the Soldier’s fingertips from the moment it becomes available to the end-user.
“What we’re able to do is experiment and get Soldier touchpoints on the best way to configure the cabin for the MEDEVAC mission based on user feedback so that when we field the aircraft we have something pretty close to what the user wants,” said Col. Samuel Fricks, division chief of Medical Evaluation Concepts and Capabilities Division, under Army Futures Command.
The collection of Soldier feedback is planned to continue for the rest of the year.
| Date Taken: | 02.13.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2025 15:30 |
| Story ID: | 491270 |
| Location: | FORT NOVOSEL, ALABAMA, US |
| Web Views: | 63 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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