Rooftop Helipad for Rockhampton Hospital, Queensland, Australia

Description

Rockhampton Hospital is the primary healthcare facility serving the Capricornia Region of Central Queensland. Helicopter flights previously operated to Rockhampton Airport with a road ambulance transfer necessary to complete the journey to the hospital. After the addition of the new rooftop helipad, patients can now be transferred directly by helicopter from the hospital rooftop to the A&E Department, cutting down critical time delays in emergency situations.

This important rooftop helipad project was awarded to Howard Allson Ltd in June of 2014, to design and supply an XE enhanced safety helipad, with a passive fire-retarding system incorporated into the aluminium decking. The helipad has a 2.2m high aluminium support structure and is fitted with a water DIFFS unit which is able to detect a fire on the helipad and automatically trigger the system of pop up nozzles.

The helipad dimensions are 23m by 27m but the facility has been designed to accept the loads generated with helicopters with a maximum mass of up to 11 tonnes which represents the larger helicopters serving offshore sites as well as the range of military helicopters that operate on occasion within the central Queensland region.

The project was completed in July of 2015 after the completion of helipad construction and T & C on the water DIFFS. Howard Allson Ltd provided the supervision for the helipad installation.