Danger is no stranger to Forests NSW chief pilot Grant Johnson, as he  flies Forests NSW helicopter on hundreds of missions that take him all over NSW  each year.

In the past, he would have dealt with many sticky situations by  himself, but this has changed with the recent introduction of satellite  tracking.

Now Grant can call on a high-tech helping hand  from the ground. For example, if he is approaching a number of nasty looking  thunderstorms directly ahead of him in the central west, he can call fire  operations and safety officer Mike Pryjma, who is monitoring Grants flight  from a comfy chair in his Maitland office.

Mike consults his computer screen and suggests Grant veer left by about  20 degrees, fly for 10 minutes and then veer to the right by 40 degrees. This  route takes Grant between two storm cells and onto clean air.

This has been made possible through Forests NSW adoption of the latest  in satellite technology - a system called spidertracks- which cleverly  combines a Global Position System (GPS) position receiver and a satellite  transmitter in one convenient unit.

Spidertracks uses the Iridium satellite network to relay real-time  three dimensional coordinates of the helicopter from anywhere in New South Wales.

The GPS position points are translated by  spidertracks software and overlaid over terrain or satellite maps, showing the  speed, altitude, direction and position of the helicopter in real time.

Each flight path is recorded as a permanent flight record.

This system allows Forests NSW to follow the progress of the  helicopter live on screen on any computer and even from the field if a wireless  modem is used. This process of monitoring aircraft flights is referred to as  flight following.

Knowing  the location of the helicopter is a fundamental safety requirement and becomes  critically important if it was to crash, especially in remote country, Mike  says.

Spidertracks has revolutionised the way we do  flight following. Its such a simple yet versatile system, which allows us to  track the location of our helicopter at one-minute intervals from any computer  from any location.

Forests NSW has owned and operated a helicopter since 1985. While the  helicopter undertakes a variety of surveillance and survey functions, its  primary task is to support ground operations  in fighting bushfires and undertaking aerial burn-offs as part of Forests NSW  fuel reduction activities.

By the very nature of the work they undertake, operating helicopters  can be extremely hazardous and the consequences of human error or equipment  failure are often catastrophic, Mike says.

If things go wrong the pilot can send an  automated distress message. Once generated, spidertracks automatically sends  messages to key staff via e-mail and SMS, who can then activate the search and  rescue procedures.

This technology also has many operational benefits such as marking  points of interest or plotting the location of fires.

The new system is certainly working for Grant, who has flown  helicopters for more than 30 years, and fought fires from the air for most of  that time.

It is very impressive. I now feel so much more comfortable knowing  that someone is watching me on the screen and my location is constantly being  tracked, he says.

This article appears in the Spring/Summer 2009 edition of Bush Telegraph Magazine.