Science in the Triangle

Watch Virtual Heroes developer Juan Collado demonstrate HumanSim on an iPad. | Video by Tyler Dukes

As he piloted his Army Apache toward his landing zone, Jerry Heneghan knew he was in trouble.

Without warning, one of his helicopter’s twin engines began belching flame into the night sky, threatening to set the entire aircraft ablaze. Without thinking, he acted in the pitch black of the cockpit, flipping switches by feel and following procedures as he’d done hundreds of times before. There was no hesitation, no surge of adrenaline.

At least until he landed.

“It was only afterwards when I got the aircraft on the ground that I was like, ‘Oh my God, what just happened? I could have turned extra crispy up there,’” Heneghan said.

His survival had nothing to do with good fortune. Before ever stepping foot in a $20 million cockpit, he underwent an intensive training regimen that spanned a gamut of learning techniques from low-tech cockpit posters to full-motion flight simulators housed in gymnasium-sized facilities.

“I know that being in a simulator for thousands of hours over a 15-year career saved my life,” he said. “The time that I should have been most panicked, I was very calm.”

Heneghan, now the managing director of Raleigh-based game developer Virtual Heroes, is out to bring that simulated training approach to doctors, nurses and even combat medics. And he wants to put this training in their pockets. By building on local gaming technology and medical expertise, Virtual Heroes’ upcoming HumanSim aims to allow medical professionals at all levels to hone their skills almost anywhere — whether it’s on the iPad or the PC. Read more…