APEM's Aerial Training

APEM are currently involved in several aerial survey projects including renewable energy environmental impact assessment, invasive and native plant distributions, and river catchment monitoring. Customised survey design, cutting-edge technology and our own aircraft provides the flexibility to provide digital stills imagery down to 2cm resolution.


(Above) APEM Ltd purpose-built Vulcan Air P68 Observer survey Aircraft 

Increasing interest and demand for APEMs aerial survey capabilities have led to several of our staff undertaking further Health and Safety training for our aerial surveys work including Sea Survival, Air Safety Crew Training, and Aircraft specific First Aid Trauma courses.

Multiple training sessions are given to APEM Aerial Scientists in order to prepare them specifically for marine aerial surveys. Training is provided by Falck Nutec UK, Northumbria Police Diving School, JM Aircrew Training and North-West Air Ambulance.

Sea Survival Course

APEMs Aerial Surveys team recently underwent ‘Sea Survival’ training with the Northumbria Police – Marine Unit, at the International Diving and Marine School, Jarrow, Newcastle–Upon–Tyne and Falck Nutec UK. The courses provide all our survey personnel with survival training skills in the event of an accident such as having to ditch at sea.

The training course includes a theory session surrounding the fundamentals of sea survival. Demonstrations of basic sea survival equipment follow including, life jackets / buoyancy aids, life rafts and flares. For the final part of the course, staff take to the training pool for wet drill training, including entering into a life raft, righting an over-turned life raft and escaping a sinking aircraft. All staff have passed with flying colours!



Air Safety Course

This course provided by JM Aircrew Training is designed to train APEM Aerial Scientists as a member of crew. As such, the training is highly comprehensive and covers the following key areas including aircraft safety, navigation, meteorology, legislation and aircraft systems.

A huge amount is gained from the expertise of the tutors and the experience is highly beneficial to every APEM Aerial Scientist and provides them with the tools to be an effective crew member.



First Aid Trauma Course

Each member of the aerial survey team is trained in basic first aid trauma tailored to aircraft incidents and given by Iain Nellis of the North West Air Ambulance Crew. Iain is a paramedic tutor and provides refresher training to the aerial team in:

• ABC (Airways-Breathing-Circulation)
• Emergency Management (triage)
• Mass haemorrhage and trauma care including braces and splints, endotracheal (ET) tubes, torniquet and collapsed lung care

All the team find the course both rewarding and interesting and gives each team member the basic skills and confidence to manage an accident scenarion and thus potentially save someone's life.