Mark Huber

Mark Huber is a public policy analyst and aviation industry veteran who has worked in the flight training, aircraft sales, aircraft component and airport development businesses. He has flight time in more than 50 different and diverse aircraft including helicopters, aerobatic aircraft, vintage warbirds, jet fighters, turbine business aircraft, and transport category aircraft. Since 1985, his defense and aviation journalism has been published in a variety of national and international periodicals.

Articles by Mark Huber

• Controlled burns: Safety changes on the horizon for helicopters

  Thursday, September 15, 2016

  ​Good news. The past July — typically the worst month of the year for helicopter accidents — was the second-safest on record in 30 years, and the overall accident rate for the first six months of the year is trending down. Good work, everyone.

• Russia: The next HEMS growth market

  Friday, August 12, 2016

  The success of the helicopter EMS model in the U.S. is prompting its emulation worldwide. While many nations have had this service for years, only now are they making a serious effort to develop it on a meaningful scale. One prime growth market: Russia. Anyone who has watched a YouTube video of Russian drivers can see how the need for helicopter EMS in the country would be acute.

• Drone day afternoon: A closer look at the FAA’s new rules

  Friday, July 15, 2016

  We'll soon see if the new FAA drone rules — the much heralded ​Part 107 — will bring some sky sanity when they take effect Aug. 29. More than anything else, the rules are designed to impose a safety mindset on the unmanned aircraft community.

• Medicare can actually push HEMS toward rationality

  Friday, June 24, 2016

  Many would argue that the helicopter air ambulance industry in the U.S. as currently constructed is economically irrational and unsustainable. Too many helicopters, flying too few hours, charging patients whatever they like and a political backlash not far in the distance. The question is, what can we do about it?

• The party may soon be over for air medical companies

  Thursday, June 09, 2016

  If you couldn't tell by the score, you could tell by the song. On the old television broadcasts of "Monday Night Football," during garbage time in the fourth quarter — that point when the game's outcome was settled beyond all doubt — announcer Don Meredith, drawling off-key and without accompaniment, would croak out the old Willie Nelson country western standard, "Turn out the lights, the par-ty's o-o-ver ..."

• Applying aviation risk factors to medicine

  Thursday, May 26, 2016

  ​Aviation and medicine have a lot in common. They both require the ability to master a body of knowledge and apply it in a disciplined way, to keep cool while working under pressure, and sometimes rapidly adapt to a changing environment. But can other lessons learned about behavior and performance in aviation be applied to medicine as a way to drive down incidences of malpractice? The answer appears to be yes.

• Bad attitudes lead to bad medicine

  Friday, May 13, 2016

  A friend had been suffering with abdominal pain and related gastrointestinal issues for weeks. He tried to work through the issue with his family doctor, but when that brought no joy he was referred to a specialist. When he called for an appointment, he explained his symptoms and was stunned. Not only was the first available appointment not for six weeks, but the scheduler was also wholly unsympathetic, even downright surly.

• The end of ER diversions

  Thursday, April 28, 2016

  ​The problem of emergency room overcrowding is not new. It creates a chain of failure, particularly when ambulances with critically ill patients aboard — on the ground or in the air — must divert to a secondary hospital, and therefore delay the onset of care.

• Sleepless flights: ICAO working on pilot fatigue guidelines

  Friday, April 15, 2016

  ​Word from Montreal is that the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) — that august repository of flying knowledge and global winged harmony — is working to bring sleep standards for helicopter pilots in line for guidelines long since established for their fixed-wing brethren.

• Get ready for more rotorcraft regulation

  Thursday, March 31, 2016

  A stagnant fatal accident rate combined with pressure from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and Congress is forcing the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to take a hard look at its current regulations governing occupant safety and crashworthy fuel systems in rotorcraft. This ultimately could lead to regulation that includes mandated system retrofits.

• Thinking small could yield big results

  Thursday, March 17, 2016

  ​If you attended the Heli-Expo show earlier this month in Louisville, you got to see snow as well as some interesting things on the show floor — including a mock-up of a Bell 505 light single with a United Rotorcraft EMS interior. Generally, you wouldn't think a helicopter this small would be suitable for the HEMS mission, but its flat floor and big doors get if just over the goal line.

• Painfully participating in North Dakota

  Thursday, March 03, 2016

  ​Over the last year, there has been a barrage of negative stories in both the state and national media that basically paint the air ambulance industry as a bunch of robber barons. They say the industry charges exorbitant fees — sometimes in the high five figures — for services and then hunts down and hounds dumbfounded patients for payments, even patients with seemingly good private insurance that didn't cover the flight because the air carrier was "out of network." The good news: You got flown to a higher level of care that saved your life. Of course, now you are going to die of a heart attack when you get the bill.

• No, we have not failed

  Friday, February 12, 2016

  The current issue of Rotor & Wing features a photo of crumpled helicopter wreckage on the cover beneath the headline, "After 10 Years, Have We Failed?" The accompanying article inside examines the International Helicopter Safety Team's (IHST) 2005 goal of reducing helicopter accidents by 80 percent within 10 years and some of the reasons why we, as an industry, have come up short. Okay, way short. And the fatal accident rate has remained the same for years — just under 1 in 5.

• A helicopter noise standoff in Los Angeles

  Friday, February 05, 2016

  The subject of helicopter noise in the Los Angeles Basin is an emotional topic for those on both sides of the issue, but events over the last year threaten to send it on a collision course with reality. First, a little background.

• Is IFR for everyone really the answer?

  Thursday, January 21, 2016

  ​Last year, a coalition of industry trade groups released a white paper advocating easier instrument flight rules (IFR) flying for Part 27 helicopters — those weighing under 7,000 pounds. The goal is to combat the perennial problem of helicopter meets cloud, helicopter meets ground, and people die — either by loss of control (LOC) or controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).

• Don’t rule out vertical lift just yet

  Friday, January 08, 2016

  ​It didn't take long for the chattering class to start writing the obituary for the AgustaWestland AW609 civil tiltrotor shortly after a prototype crashed Oct. 30 in Italy, killing the crew. And if you think you've seen this movie before, you have. The detractors of the AW609's big brother, the V-22 Osprey, hauled out the same tired, old sheet music Luddites have been out-of-tune croaking to since Icarus strapped on a pair of wings, when the first V-22 went down more than two decades ago.

• Simulation in HEMS benefits everyone

  Thursday, December 10, 2015

  Hats off to University of Michigan Survival Flight nurses Chad Stoller and Jeff Thomas for winning this year's Association of Air Medical Services 2015 Sim Cup for the second straight year.

• FAA working to bring big changes to helicopter safety

  Friday, December 04, 2015

  In November, the FAA announced it has tasked the Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee's (ARAC) Rotorcraft Occupant Protection Working Group to look at possible solutions that would increase occupant survivability of older-design helicopters in an accident — particularly as they relate to blunt-force injury and post-crash fire.

• Mental hygiene: Can regulations prevent the next Germanwings tragedy?

  Friday, November 20, 2015

  ​So when exactly is someone too mentally unstable to be trusted with the flight controls of an aircraft? In the wake of the Germanwings co-pilot mass murder/suicide this spring, we can expect the usual hysteria and overreaction from politicians and regulators and additional pages of compliance trailing behind. But it all really comes down to personal responsibility.

• Smile for the camera: Cockpit recorders are here to stay

  Thursday, November 05, 2015

  ​Surveillance cameras are everywhere today — where we shop, live, work and drive. In our post-9/11 world, it seems like they are in every shopping mall and on every street corner. Some are placarded with signs, some are hidden, but they are there, and there is no escaping it.

• Decide or die: The use of EDP in difficult weather conditions

  Thursday, October 22, 2015

  ​For a number of years now, the National EMS Pilots Association has been promoting an idea its calls the Enroute Decision Point, or EDP for short. I prefer to call it the "enroute death point" — because if you fly past it, that could easily be your fate.

• Safety is not just a priority — it’s a core value

  Thursday, October 08, 2015

  Robert Sumwalt has been a member of the National Transportation Safety Board since 2006. Prior to joining the NTSB, Sumwalt worked as a pilot for Piedmont Airlines and US Airways. At the latter, he worked on special assignment to the flight safety department and also served on the airline's Flight Operational Quality Assurance (FOQA) monitoring team.

• Saturation nation: Are we nearing the end of HEMS fleet expansion?

  Thursday, September 24, 2015

  ​Is the expansion party over for helicopter EMS? Increasingly, the tea leaves are pointing in that direction. As the nation's fleet has expanded dramatically in the last decade — nearly tripling to 900 EMS helicopters — utilization rates have plunged while per-transport costs have skyrocketed.

• Everyone benefits from tactical medical training

  Thursday, September 10, 2015

  It was a warm summer afternoon. I pulled into the hotel parking lot and immediately noticed something was amiss. A man was lying motionless on the pavement. I ran over and checked for breathing and a pulse. They were there, but the man was unresponsive. I summoned the desk clerk who called 911. Within minutes, a succession of three squad cars arrived.

• Small steps to help out first responders

  Thursday, August 27, 2015

  Are you doing things that make it more difficult for first responders? The issue recently came up in my rural enclave, where many of us have roads/driveways to our abodes that most generously can be described as "primitive." I really hadn't given the issue much thought until a member of my household needed to summon EMS.

• Hot offloading for heart patients

  Friday, August 07, 2015

  When and when not to "hot offload" a patient — in other words ingress or egress with the main helicopter rotor disc spinning — has been the subject of debate for years. Negatives associated with the practice include the possibilities of getting clipped by the main rotor or walking into a spinning tail rotor. We saw the risk associated with moving around engaged helicopters again recently, when a mechanic lost his life.

• Green is the new black for Ornge pilots

  Friday, July 24, 2015

  A rather public debate has been raging all summer up in Ontario with regard to what are safe nighttime operations for the province's HEMS provider Ornge. The fatal nighttime crash in 2013 of one of the Ornge's S-76As while taking off into a "black hole" from its base in Moosonee that killed all four crew members has resulted in a series of reforms.

• The perfect storm for a pilot shortage: Part III

  Friday, July 10, 2015

  The declining number of retired military pilots entering civil aviation, coupled with the potentially-crippling proposed limits on the use of Veterans Administration educational benefits for civil flight training, promises to place more pressure than ever on civilian-track students to fill an emerging pilot shortage, including for helicopter EMS. But given the high cost of helicopter training — up to $300,000 — and a lack of affordable student loans to finance it, will enough young men and women choose helicopter flying as a career?

• The perfect storm for a pilot shortage: Part II

  Thursday, July 02, 2015

  The U.S. civil aviation industry has long relied on the military to train a good share of its pilots — directly or indirectly — going back to the days just after World War II. With the military's shrinking size, it's understandable that the number of pilots with military training entering the civilian workforce is shrinking.

• The perfect storm for a pilot shortage: Part I

  Friday, June 26, 2015

  For years, we’ve heard much about the coming helicopter pilot shortage, brought on in no small part by the unwinding of the U.S. military to its smallest size since before World War II. Evidence now suggests that this shortage is now upon us and that it will hit the helicopter EMS industry disproportionately. Consider the following factors.

• The decision to fly — How do you make it?

  Thursday, June 11, 2015

  Determining when to launch — and when not to — is the most fundamental and consequential decision the helicopter crew can make, but how do you make it? New federal mandates now require crews to use risk assessment, but which risk assessment tool is right for your organization?

• 3 exciting innovations that impact the EMS community

  Friday, May 29, 2015

  There has been lots of news on the technology front in the last few weeks. Here is a look at three innovative ideas that will aid those who work in emergency medical services.

• Nurse’s death highlights risky nature of hoisting operations

  Friday, May 15, 2015

  ​It's happened again. Another EMS rescuer has plunged to her death during a hoisting operation. ​This one happened April 27 in Texas. Nurse Kristin McClain, 46, somehow became disconnected while ascending to a STAR Flight Airbus Helicopters H145 during the night-time rescue of an injured hiker.

• New Mexico police shape up after fatal helicopter crash

  Friday, May 01, 2015

  The National Transportation Safety Board has taken state police forces to task for a series of fatal helicopter crashes in recent years from Maryland to Alaska. But perhaps the board levied its heaviest criticism at the New Mexico State Police (NMSP) for the fatal crash of its AgustaWestland AW109E back in 2009. Dead bodies tend to generate self-reflection, and to its credit, the NMSP instituted reforms, and shared them with the rotorcraft community at large at this year's Heli-Expo during an NTSB safety forum.

• Air Methods making big moves in HEMS industry

  Friday, April 17, 2015

  I've always liked company executives who make big moves and have a passion and a vision for their business. Air Methods CEO Aaron Todd is one of those guys. Over the last several months, the nation's largest HEMS provider has made two huge moves that amplify the company's safety mantra. The most recent came in March at Heli-Expo when it placed a monster order for 200 new Bell 407GXP helicopters over the next 10 years.

• Will the government finally stop short‑changing HEMS providers?

  Thursday, April 02, 2015

  It's no secret that the federal and state governments short-change helicopter EMS providers when it comes to reimbursement for air medical flights covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Patients covered by these programs account for nearly 60 percent of all medical transport flights, so we're not talking pocket change here.

• 7 ways to make helicopter operations safer

  Friday, March 20, 2015

  ​The International Helicopter Safety Team (IHST) is a volunteer organization that does excellent work analyzing safety data and making recommendations for best practices. It recently analyzed 500 accidents and released its latest list of seven initiatives that would make helicopter operations safer.

• New EMS sleep study to examine the effect of shift work

  Friday, March 06, 2015

  Those of us who have ever worked rotating, overnight or long shift schedules know all too well the inherent difficulties in feeling consistently well-rested and the potential for compromised performance due to fatigue.

• Extreme sports or extremely stupid? Risk‑takers place burden on medical system

  Friday, February 20, 2015

  ​Is it an extreme sport or just extremely stupid? That's the question I had after a recent PR blurb from the Los Angeles County Sheriff caught my eye. Rescues performed by the department's volunteer search-and-rescue teams, often with the assistance of Air Rescue 5, increased 20 percent in 2014 from the previous year. The department attributed most of this increase to "social media and the posting of extreme videos, showing hikers performing high-risk outdoor adventures."

• SAR privatization good for UK, other countries

  Friday, February 06, 2015

  The U.K. is embarking on an experiment that will see much of the helicopter search-and-rescue missions that used to be flown by Royal Air Force helicopters now performed by those belonging to the Bristow Group under a long-term contract. If the program succeeds, expect to see copycats spring up around the world. The rationale for privatizing helicopter search and rescue basically comes down to economics; civilians can generally perform many military missions cheaper and more efficiently, save for those that involve actually shooting.

• How a British HEMS company survives as a nonprofit

  Friday, January 23, 2015

  ​Well, it looks like Britain's Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, will start flying helicopter EMS missions for the East Anglian Air Ambulance service in a few months, ​my previous advice as to the wisdom of this career move notwithstanding. For the sake of the prince and his growing family, I hope all goes well.

• Let’s call ‘lasing’ helicopters what it really is: Attempted murder

  Friday, January 09, 2015

  ​The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund published its annual compilation of officers killed in action during 2014. The killings of law enforcement officers rose again this past year; increasing from 102 in 2013 to 126 in 2014. These heinous crimes are part of a growing overall trend of the criminal element taking blindside pot shots of police, firefighters and EMS professionals — on the ground and in the air.

• Should doctors fly in helicopters?

  Wednesday, December 17, 2014

  Few aeromedical programs feature a physician aboard the aircraft. But should they? And is this worth the extra cost? Several studies have been done on the subject both in the U.S. and Europe. In the U.S., the percentage of aeromedical flights with physicians aboard has declined from 13 percent in 1984 to about 5 percent today.

• EMS crews need to think like Aaron Rodgers

  Thursday, December 11, 2014

  ​An EMS crew can learn a lot from a top-performing NFL quarterback. For the last five weeks, my beloved Green Bay Packers have run off five straight wins, collectively outscoring opponents, 201-113. The entire team is playing at a high level, but what has really stood out is the superhuman performances turned in by Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers.

• Alaska is a deadly place to fly

  Monday, December 01, 2014

  Flying in Alaska is a whole different cat. I've done it exactly once. It was both awe-inspiring and occasionally terrifying: One-way upslope gravel runways, wicked shears off the mountains, and snow and storms that come out of nowhere in the middle of a whole bunch of nowhere.

• When bad things happen to good organizations

  Friday, November 14, 2014

  ​I recently spent several months looking into a rather baffling fatal helicopter accident. A well-trained pilot was flying a new helicopter outfitted with all the latest safety bells and whistles. The pilot worked for a top-rate organization that is a well-known industry innovator in safety management and perennially recognized for excellence by the Federal Aviation Administration.

• In helicopter EMS, it’s the crew that’s golden

  Friday, October 31, 2014

  What is the main benefit of helicopter EMS? Most everyone would say the time it cuts in getting patients to an appropriate level of care. Indeed, there are numerous studies that show that time-saving transport is beneficial. But is time the only factor at work here?

• Civil HEMS finally arrives in China

  Friday, October 17, 2014

  A couple of months ago, I asked the CEO of a helicopter manufacturer why it was taking so long for the Chinese market to fully open up. He explained that the Air Force there still controlled the airspace, and they were in no hurry to turn it over to civilians.

• USHST looking for volunteers to help improve helicopter safety

  Friday, October 03, 2014

  ​The ​United States Helicopter Safety Team is looking for a few good men and women to join its Implementation Committee. The excellent work of this volunteer group has been instrumental in driving down the helicopter accident rate in recent years.

• When drones attack: FAA must act soon on unmanned aircraft

  Thursday, September 18, 2014

  This was inevitable. Last month a drone conflicted with the operation of an EMS helicopter in Dayton, Ohio. As these unmanned aircraft proliferate, the FAA continues to struggle with how to regulate them. Now we are told rules may be in place by 2018 or 2019.

• ‘Gray Bird 333’ comes through during Ebola epidemic

  Friday, September 05, 2014

  Concern over the recent Ebola virus epidemic recently focused the global media spotlight on obscure Cartersville, Georgia, aircraft charter company Phoenix Air, and to a larger extent, the global air ambulance business. Phoenix evacuated medical aid workers Dr. Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol from Liberia last month on separate 14-hour flights in a specially modified 32-year-old Gulfstream III, call sign Gray Bird 333, which had once done duty with the Royal Dutch Air Force and was still painted in its gray military livery.

• Boom in helicopter leasing is good news for medevac industry

  Friday, August 22, 2014

  ​The stampede to cash in on the burgeoning deepwater offshore energy market has spawned a series of helicopter-leasing companies with billions of capital to invest. Initially the deals were for just large and medium helicopters servicing the oil and gas industry, but it now looks like some of these companies are making serious efforts to penetrate the medevac and parapublic markets — and that could be good news, especially for smaller players in the industry.

• Benefits of FBW extend to helicopter medevacs

  Friday, August 08, 2014

  Pilots undoubtedly know what Fly-By-Wire is: An aircraft system whereby a pilot makes control inputs that are interpreted and governed by a computer that sends electronic commands to actuators that manipulate things on a helicopter like the main rotor pitch, camber and tailrotor.

• Blades inside the cabin: The next step in air medical services

  Friday, July 25, 2014

  Earlier this year I wrote about the growing trend of performing airborne blood transfusions on trauma patients. What's the next logical step? Airborne surgery. Performing life-saving medical procedures in the air is not a new phenomenon — the U.S. Air Force has been doing it for years.

• Group therapy: Close-call stories help improve flight safety

  Friday, July 11, 2014

  The Center for Medical Transport Research will hold its annual Safety Story Workshop from Oct. 22-24 in Denver. With help from the Center for Digital Story Telling, TCMTR will bring together air medical professionals who will again share their stories about coming a razor's width from "buying the farm" — pilot parlance for ending up in a body bag.

• Are fixed-wing aircraft the right fix for patient transport?

  Thursday, June 26, 2014

  While there will always be a need for helicopter EMS, particularly in urban areas, the industry is increasingly looking at fixed-wing solutions as cost pressures mount. While hospital-based programs still use helicopters to corral market share, fixed-wing transport is becoming a more popular option, particularly with doctors and patients who want choices and with cost-cutting insurance companies.

• Prince William shouldn’t scratch his piloting itch

  Friday, June 13, 2014

  It's been a year since Britain's Prince William walked away from the cockpit, piloting search-and-rescue missions in Sikorsky Sea King helicopters for the Royal Air Force. Now, after experiencing fatherhood and a year of global "grip and grin" goodwill tours on behalf of the monarchy, William has decided he is not quite ready for the life of a full-time figurehead in the fish bowl.

• Sounds in the night: Flying in the middle of nowhere

  Friday, May 30, 2014

  ​I live in the area of the United States that can be charitably called the middle of nowhere. Step outside in the winter, and the only thing you are likely to hear is your own breathing. Yep, sound carries here. In the dead of night, I can hear a jet at 30,000 feet some 30 or even 40 miles away.

• Helicopter safety and the sleepy summertime blues

  Friday, May 16, 2014

  Summer — the fat season for helicopter EMS — is quickly approaching, and with it comes a spike in the monthly accident rate. That's what new data from the U.S. Helicopter Safety Team suggests.

• Vertically challenged: The rooftop helipad debate

  Friday, May 02, 2014

  Rooftop helipads have always been controversial. The debate was triggered anew in March in Seattle, when a television news copter plunged from its elevated pad into the street, killing its crew and sending a river of lit Jet-A fuel flowing down the pavement, burning motorists.

• Creating a culture of safety

  Thursday, April 17, 2014

  ​Organizations build a safety culture over time in large ways and small. In the hundreds of commercial hangars I've been in over the years, it doesn't take long to spot the safe pilot or safe mechanic.

• The little picture: How weather cameras impact flight safety

  Friday, April 04, 2014

  ​Within the next few weeks, the FAA is expected to make a decision on whether to install aviation weather cameras throughout strategic locations in Hawaii. The Pacific island state has a microclimate that is highly changeable and localized and where unforecast weather has contributed to numerous fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft accidents for decades.

• Helicopter safety improving, but progress still needed

  Monday, March 24, 2014

  At the recent Heli-Expo convention, Air Methods' chief pilot Scott Tish stood next to an oversized flatscreen displaying an image of the mangled remains of one of the company's helicopters. "Does anyone think this is acceptable?" he asked the audience attending the safety seminar.

• What the FAA’s rule change means for HEMS

  Friday, March 07, 2014

  ​The FAA's exhaustive new final operations rule for helicopter air ambulance, commercial helicopter and Part 91 helicopter operations was released recently. The rule imposes new equipment, procedure and requirement changes to existing Federal Aviation Regulations (the FARs, for you pilots out there) and is estimated to cost the industry $311 million over the next 10 years.

• Balancing risk and reward for responders

  Friday, February 21, 2014

  If you are at Heli-Expo Feb. 25-27 in Anaheim, Calif., check out Paul Ratté's safety presentation Feb. 26. Ratté is the resident safety guru — aka "director of aviation safety programs" — for aircraft insurer USAIG. He is also a helicopter pilot and the former commanding officer at U.S. Coast Guard Air Station Atlantic City.

• In California, a warning sign for future helicopter regulation

  Friday, February 14, 2014

  California has long led the nation in many public policy trends, from mandating lower-emission automobiles to property tax reform. So when something new happens there, it pays for everyone — not just those who live there — to take note.

• Flying the box: The safety benefit of light helicopter simulators

  Friday, January 31, 2014

  ​There was a time when only those pilots flying medium or heavy helicopters in the military or the offshore energy sector enjoyed the benefit of simulator training or "flying the box." But when it came to light single or twin-engine helo pilots — including those flying EMS — you earned your training spurs in the cockpit. Not anymore.

• Blood in the sky: The growing trend of transfusing patients in the air

  Thursday, January 16, 2014

  In December, the BC Ambulance Service (BCAS) in Canada became the latest in a growing number of HEMS operators worldwide to carry blood — packed red blood cells (PRBCs) — on board its helicopters. Now the practice is spreading worldwide — albeit slowly — after numerous studies have shown the benefits pumping O-negative into accident victims, especially those who have gone into cardiac arrest.

• Flying HEMS into Haiti

  Tuesday, January 07, 2014

  ​The Caribbean nation of Haiti — the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere on half the island of Hispaniola — has been in need of everything for so long that the dire state of its 10 million people often is sadly viewed akin to the tide: Something man cannot change. But one group is intent on bringing medical assistance to Haiti by establishing an HEMS operation there. To understand what a big step this is, it's important to understand a bit about the impoverished nation.

• Handcuffing the crew: When rules and regulations get in the way

  Monday, December 16, 2013

  ​We all need rules. Especially those of us who fly. The days of reckless barnstorming — especially in the wake of 9/11 and the new national nervousness — are long behind us. Now we go to simulator training, we have best practices, and we get audited by independent watchdogs and insurers. Most of this is good and necessary, but some of it has the effect of retarding flight crew decision-making skills, turning them into mindless automatons who slavishly follow data trails and flight directors, sometimes with tragic results.

• Full tilt: The future of helicopter design leaning to propellers

  Thursday, December 12, 2013

  The future of helicopters is ... propellers! The Pentagon recently awarded initial development contracts for the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) Future Vertical Lift program, and all of the winning designs were compound helicopter designs. That is, they had the ability to take off and land like helicopters but fly with the speed of slow jet or fast turboprop airplanes.

• Point and shoot: Improving low-altitude navigation

  Tuesday, November 26, 2013

  Expansion of low-altitude approaches, routes and weather stations/reporting devices are critical to improving the safety of operations. Weather at lower altitudes where helicopters fly is highly changeable, and accurate weather reporting is essential. We hear a lot in Washington, D.C., about NextGen air traffic technology from the FAA, but when it comes to new whizbang aimed specifically at the needs of helicopters — well, not so much.

• Rx for HEMS: Faster and lower

  Friday, November 08, 2013

  ​How low can you go? (And live.) That has been the perpetual question as the FAA continues to work with the helicopter EMS industry to develop low-altitude infrastructure in the national airspace system, including better weather-reporting tools, low-altitude routes and point-in-space (Pins) instrument approaches.

• Last act: Final days of a rural hospital

  Friday, October 25, 2013

  ​It was the final, ignominious insult. Our little, local rural hospital had been abandoned, snapped up online for $50,000 at auction by an enterprising scrapper, a scavenger of discarded structures. Most of the good stuff already had been cleaned out of the 38,000 square-foot structure. Over the last 20 years scenes like this one, particularly in rural America, have played out frequently. Small country hospitals are going away. By 2020 as many as one-third of U.S. hospitals may be gone, predict healthcare futurists David Houle and Jonathan Fleece.

• The next big thing: U-EMS

  Friday, October 11, 2013

  Over the last decade, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have proven their worth in military applications around the globe. Want to whack a bad guy in Somalia? No problem. An Air Force "pilot" can do so with ease by manipulating a joystick in climate-controlled comfort from a trailer in Nevada. Right now in Afghanistan, unmanned Kaman K-Max helicopters are slinging supplies to Marines in high-risk areas. It’s only a matter of time before they are used to transport the injured out of hot LZs.

• Flying into entropy

  Thursday, September 26, 2013

  The Affordable Care Act passed, people read it, and many still can’t fathom all that it implies, especially for the air medical industry. We are flying into entropy.

• Don’t demonize the machine

  Friday, September 06, 2013

  In late August, another Eurocopter Super Puma crashed into the North Sea near the United Kingdom. Four of those aboard died. Over the last several years, a handful of ditchings/crashes of this model have been tied to flaws in the design of its main rotor gearbox lubrication system and a batch of replacement main rotor shafts.

• Why your helicopter seat feels like a brick

  Monday, August 26, 2013

  NASA is planning to drop-test a surplus Marine Corps CH-46 helicopter on Aug. 28 with the goal of gleaning new data on rotorcraft crashworthiness and seat belt design. The hulk will be rigged with 40 cameras, numerous sensors and 13 crash dummies. The test is part of NASA's Rotary Wing Project.

• Serving the public: Medevac services through Maryland State Police

  Friday, August 09, 2013

  For the better part of a decade, my daily commute included a stretch on the 64-mile ring of paved terror around Washington, D.C., called the Capital Beltway. For those who are unfamiliar, this is a demolition derby track masquerading as a freeway. It yields a prodigious and nearly daily dose of automotive carnage. Not surprisingly, at least once a year I would be stuck in traffic at a dead stop behind a Maryland State Police (MSP) helicopter summoned to collect an unfortunate victim of this curious car culture.

• Failure to communicate: Learning lessons from Ornge

  Friday, August 02, 2013

  In July, Ontario's coroner released the results of his long-anticipated investigation into 40 patient transport deaths between 2006 and 2012 at the Canadian province's troubled air ambulance service known as Ornge. Most of Ornge's travails have been well-publicized over the course of the last two years, and it is not my intent to rehash them here. Rather, I think it is useful to look at what the coroner said were gaps in decision-making and communications at Ornge because they are instructive in improving service in any EMS organization.

• Too fat to fly: Effect of weight on air medical transport

  Friday, July 19, 2013

  When is a medevac crewmember simply too fat to fly?

• EMS helicopters? Not in my backyard

  Tuesday, July 02, 2013

  NIMBY — the acronym means "not in my back yard." People are all for new power lines, airports, factories, windmills, oil wells and other things that benefit the public good — just not in their neighborhood. It's the height of democratic hypocrisy, and it's going on in my neighborhood right now.

• Just say no to MVFR

  Friday, June 21, 2013

  Pilots by their nature are largely optimistic and dedicated to completing the mission, a trait that seems to be stronger in those who fly helicopter EMS. The reluctance to turn down a flight when a patient's life is potentially at stake, even when low clouds are moving in, and/or the temperature/dew point spread is narrowing, is understandable, even emotionally laudable. Life-savers are heroes after all. It is their job to fly into uncertain, dark skies. Wrong. By doing so they needlessly put their lives, the lives of their crew — and patients — at risk.