A UH-60M Blackhawk helicopter was expected to fly UNF’s Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) cadets around for training today, but has to be rescheduled because of heavy cloud cover.

Florida Air National Guard volunteered the helicopters for training. The cadets were to use another cadet as a patient, load them on the helicopter and communicate on radios. The training simulates Medical Evacuation (MedEvac) in different combat scenarios.

Seniors act as officers and were responsible for planning the exercise. Freshman, sophomores and juniors all participate as cadets.

“In the real world, this is what they’d actually go through,” Major Tali Hillsgrove, Associate Professor of Military Science said.

Because the helicopters can’t be flown today, the seniors in charge of the exercise had to come up with a “contingency plan,” otherwise known as a back up plan, and present it to their professors.

Instead of the helicopter, they’ll be using the military radios they don’t usually have available to them to practice communicating with proper military terms and etiquette.

They will act as if they’re still evacuating victims, just without the stretchers and helicopter evacuations.

The helicopter training will be rescheduled for a later date. This is the second year of the training, which took three months for the seniors to plan. Professors are going to try and reschedule the training before the seniors graduate on May 1.

Spinnaker will update when the helicopter training has been rescheduled.
[doptg id=”159″]

Photos by Tyler van Voorthuijsen

*4/16/2015 at 4:48 p.m. – Updated with video

—

For more information or news tips, contact reporter7@unfspinnaker.com; if you see an error in this story or have any compliments or concerns, contact news@unfspinnaker.com.