Central North Island’s first dedicated rescue helicopter training centre officially opens in Taupō
Search & Rescue Services has officially opened its new Miro Street Centre of Excellence in Taupō – a purpose-built training facility and operational headquarters that represents a major milestone in the delivery of New Zealand’s emergency air ambulance helicopter service.
The facility, blessed this morning by Mana Whenua Ngāti Tūwharetoa, will serve as the training hub for the crews who operate a fleet of rescue helicopters, including several of the Government’s recently funded fleet of new Airbus H145 aircraft – the centrepiece of a $128 million rotary wing air ambulance investment jointly funded by Health New Zealand | Te Whatu Ora and ACC.
Search & Rescue Services is the emergency air ambulance service provider for central New Zealand, operating from eight bases across the North Island with more than 150 pilots, critical care paramedics, air crew officers, and support staff on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Owned by five regional community charitable Trusts, Search & Rescue Services is sustained through the generous support of sponsors and donors alongside significant Government investment.
“Every day, our crews are asked to make difficult decisions in difficult places – on a mountain face, above the deck of a vessel, on the side of a road, or while transporting critically unwell patients between hospitals. This facility gives our people a safe place to train for those unsafe environments, so they can be the best lifeline they can be for the people who need them most,” says Paul Baxter, Chief Executive of Search & Rescue Services.
“This facility is central to how we prepare, train, and equip the specialist crews who operate this essential lifesaving service, and where the Government’s significant investment in emergency health infrastructure comes to life.”
An additional $14.7 million was invested in the year to July 2025 – $8.2 million from Health New Zealand and $6.5 million from ACC – to enable the replacement of ageing helicopters with modern Airbus H145 aircraft now entering service across the country.
The new five-blade H145 D3 helicopters offer improved safety, greater reliability, enhanced bad-weather capability through Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) technology, reduced maintenance costs, and better operational performance. With demand for air ambulance services increasing by 22 per cent in five years, the fleet upgrade and new training facility together represent the most significant capability uplift in the sector’s history.
“This facility is central to how we prepare, train, and equip the crews who operate the Government-funded fleet,” said Paul Baxter, Chief Executive of Search & Rescue Services.
At the heart of the facility is an Entrol H145 flight simulator – a specialist helicopter training device manufactured in Spain and certified by the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority. The simulator includes augmented and mixed reality hoist training capability, allowing pilots, air crew officers, and paramedics to train together as a whole crew in realistic, scenario-based exercises.
The simulator’s photorealistic scenarios are designed to replicate the actual terrain and environments the crews cover, from Ngāuruhoe to the Auckland Hospital helipad, meaning that training directly transfers to real-world operations. It enables crews to safely experience scenarios that cannot be safely or consistently replicated in the actual aircraft, and to repeat, review, debrief, and improve.
The facility also houses a state-of-the-art, high-fidelity Laerdal clinical simulator, supported by technology that enables simulation sessions to be managed, recorded, assessed, and delivered remotely across the organisation’s eight-base network. A dedicated lecture room, briefing and debriefing spaces, and provision for a future practical rescue skills area with a full-size helicopter training mock-up complete the facility.
“We call this our Centre of Excellence not because excellence is a label we give ourselves, but because excellence is something we have to practise,” Baxter said. “It is something we have to build, test, challenge, and improve every day. This is the place where our technical knowledge has a home, and where that knowledge can be shared, developed, and advanced over time.”
Today’s event included a blessing ceremony led by Ngāti Tūwharetoa before guests toured the flight simulator, witnessed a demonstration of the clinical simulation and webcast capability, and viewed one of the Airbus H145 helicopters on display.
