AAMedP-1.2 aeromedical training of flight personnel

What it is

AAMedP-1.2, Aeromedical Training of Flight Personnel, is a NATO Allied Aeromedical Publication: the technical training standard that sits beneath the STANAG covering it, STANAG 3114. Where a STANAG is the agreement by which NATO nations commit to a standard, AAMedP-1.2 is the substance itself - the minimum aeromedical training NATO flight personnel are expected to receive, from their first course before flying status through refresher training across a flying career. The current edition is Edition A, Version 2, promulgated May 2024, effective on receipt and superseding Edition A, Version 1, which affected nations were told to destroy under local document-destruction procedure.

The standard is explicit about its own purpose: "the aim of this standard is to detail minimum standards of aeromedical training required for flight personnel in order to promote safety and efficiency in the operation of military aircraft and to allow aircrew of one NATO nation to fly in equivalent aircraft of another nation without additional aeromedical training." It is equally explicit about what it leaves out: it "does not cover specific training requirements for operating with night vision devices or in a CBRN environment," both of which sit in other NATO documents.

Who it addresses, and how it binds

AAMedP-1.2 is written for a nation's own aircrew training establishments, the instructors they run, and the National Authority that oversees them. "Flight personnel" - the trainees the standard concerns - are defined in its own terms as "those personnel who hold a medical flight category and who have an essential role in the completion of the flight mission. They work within the aircraft during its flight." Non-constituted crew, such as aeromedical evacuation personnel, fall outside that definition, though the document notes they "may require some elements of the training described herein" without setting that training out itself.

It creates no direct obligation for a commercial supplier. Nations agree to use AAMedP-1.2 through STANAG 3114 - the Letter of Promulgation records that "the agreement of nations to use this publication is recorded in STANAG 3114" - and this edition "is effective upon receipt," a nation-to-nation trigger rather than a contract clause. Eight nations recorded reservations against parts of it at promulgation: Albania, for instance, limits its own implementation to rotary-wing training because its air force operates no fixed-wing aircraft, and France treats the practical portion of refresher training as optional depending on its capacity to mobilise personnel and instructors. Others vary the timing or delivery of specific training elements. None of that reservation activity is something a supplier negotiates; it happens between NATO nations.

Initial and refresher training, by aircraft type

Clause 1.2 sets the core obligations: every flight-personnel member completes initial training before being placed on flying status, and refresher training recurs at intervals not exceeding five years, sooner on a change of aircraft type, or after more than three years away from operational flying. Initial training (Chapter 2) runs a common core of academic and practical instruction - covering the atmosphere and respiration, hypoxia, oxygen equipment, cabin pressurisation, thermal stress, acceleration, escape from aircraft, vision, hearing, vibration, disorientation, human performance, toxic substances, health promotion, flying clothing, and survival and first aid, among other topics - and adds aircraft-specific training on top: additional instruction and practical elements for fast jet/high performance/ejection seat aircrew, for fixed wing non-fast jet aircrew, for rotary wing aircrew (including underwater-escape training), and a reduced syllabus for aircrew flying light aircraft or remotely piloted aircraft only, the latter reflecting that this group is "not subject to the physiological stresses of operating in the aerial environment unless flying experience is included in their training."

Refresher training (Chapter 3) revises the same subject areas with an emphasis on practical application, plus whatever has changed in equipment or aircraft safety since the last course. The document is explicit that a full rapid-decompression experience "is not required during refresher training," leaving individual nations free to include it where their own risk-benefit assessment justifies it, and that centrifuge training "will not normally be undertaken" as part of a refresher course.

Instructors, facilities and assessment

Instructors delivering this training must be "approved by their National Authority to undertake this type of training," and should ideally hold flying experience or a flight qualification alongside practical knowledge of aviation medicine and human physiology. Where practicable, the standard expects aeromedical instruction to be integrated with training on the aircraft's own life-support and escape equipment. Training establishments running the more demanding elements of practical instruction are required to keep medical facilities and a suitably qualified medical officer readily available. Testing of students is left to the National Authority's own discretion, formal or informal, at any point in the course.

How it is evaluated

AAMedP-1.2 names no accredited certification body and no scheme for certifying an organisation against it. The assessment it describes runs at the level of the individual: a National Authority may test a student, and it separately approves the instructors who deliver the training. Neither is an audit of a company, and the document sets no mechanism by which an organisation earns or holds a certificate under this standard.

Getting the document

NATO publishes AAMedP-1.2 free of charge through the NATO Standardization Document Database. ComplyTrain does not sell it or hold a copy for distribution; the NSDD listing for AAMedP-1.2 is the source. It is covered by STANAG 3114.