Help on the Horizon

The Royal Flying Doctor Service engaged FRD to develop a ground-breaking visitor experience in Dubbo, NSW.

Visitors touch down into the world of heroic doctors, nurses, pilots and rural communities. They have the opportunity to witness each step the Flying Doctor takes to deliver urgent medical care across a 7.69 million square km ‘waiting room’ – the Australian outback. Visitors to the experience get to know the innovative women and men of the Flying Doctor who help keep remote Australians safe. The exhibition tells the inside stories of the teams that bring life-saving ‘help on the horizon’ right across the outback.

Via augmented reality applications, visitors explore the treatment of a patient in the cabin of an aeromedical aircraft, a mobile dental surgery and a fly-in clinic room. They walk through a split fuselage, see the controls and interact with touchscreens and aeromedical equipment, as if they’re flying thousands of kilometres to the nearest hospital. Large-scale control screens show the day-to-day action of the Flying Doctor unfolding in real time. Visitors can watch the locations of Flying Doctor planes and teams while they retrieve people in need, or provide primary healthcare across Australia’s outback. Dynamic touch tables, interactive games and an immersive ‘object theatre’ show capture the character and spirit of rural Australians, their stories and the challenges of living in the vast and beautiful outback.

This project was opened in 2019. FRD conceived and developed the content, multimedia, 3D and graphic design for the visitor experience.