New jet for Australia Flying Doctors
24 May 2015 by News Desk
Australia’s Royal Flying Doctor Service has ordered a $10m Pilatus PC-24 twin-jet for rapid medical evacuations and hospital transfers.
The aircraft will halve flying times on the organisation’s main routes, including Alice Springs-Adelaide. The jet has a top speed of 787 km/h and a range of 3,610km.
Apart from reducing the flying time for long-haul patients, the aircraft would is capable of transferring three patients in stretchers, together with medical staff, from Adelaide to any capital city in Australia without refuelling.
The plane will be able to reach any centre inSouth Australia within 90 minutes, and remote industrial sites as the Moomba oil and gas fields in the Cooper Basin, within 60 minutes.
It was designed to operate from paved and dirt airstrips, with a single pilot.
The jet will be on standby 24 hours a day every day, under its State emergency medical retrieval and hospital transfer contract with the South Australian Government. A new $13 million aero-medical base is being built at Adelaide Airport.
