Hospital Rooftop Helipad for Flinders Centre for Innovation in Cancer (FCIC)

Description

FCIC, a joint venture between the Flinders Medical Centre Foundation, Flinders University and Flinders Medical Centre, was officially opening in April 2012. Located in Adelaide, South Australia, FCIC is a four storey building with an aluminium helipad incorporated on the rooftop.

Howard Allson Ltd designed and supplied a rectangular shape XE Enhanced Safety aluminium helipad (dimensions 26.5m X 22.9m) on the rooftop of FCIC building in late 2011. The helipad design was an Enhanced Safety helipad with a patented fire-retarding system incorporated in the aluminium decking and fitted with a water DIFFS unit. The advantages of using water as an extinguishing medium over foam are well known but basically it is cheap, plentiful, has no environmental issues, no shelf life. The support structure of the helipad is also manufactured in high strength marine grade aluminium alloys. This makes them lightweight and maintenance free for their lifetime.

FCIC’s old helipad was atop the hospital’s multi-storey car park and the journey from landing to theatre previously involved a complex and long winded shuttle across much of the hospital. Now, it’s land on the FCIC rooftop, down one level in a lift, providing direct access to the existing Flinders Medical Centre Accident and Emergency Department for retrieval teams.