Cumbria Air Ambulance in action today - 15:07:06

[flyer43]

I was lucky enough to see the Cumbrian Air Ambulance Bolkow perform two pick-ups from a fairly tight location in Foxfield near Broughton-in-Furness close to a cottage where my wife and I were just finishing our holiday. Two cars had a head-on collision on a corner only a hundred metres or so from our cottage and the road was closed.
As you can see from the attached pickie, loads of wires, trees, fences, lamp posts and buildings around.
Two very well flown pick-ups were made after a very thorough recce of the location.
Congrats to the team on a job well done!
Judging from the state of the two cars involved the occupants would doubtlessly have been in a very bad way. Hopefully the intervention of the heli flights will have given them a fighting chance.

http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l83/Flyer43/CumbriaAirAmb150706.jpg
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l83/Flyer43/CumbriaAirAmb_150706.jpg

[Upland Goose]

Flyer 43

Good to see you back!

If the pilot was Steve Graham - I'm not surprised he did a good job!

Always spot on, and a great load lifting pilot as well. A true Scottish gent.

UG:ok:

[ShyTorque]

UG, could you please get in touch?

Cheers, ShyT.

p.s. How many rivets so far :) ?

[Bertie Thruster]

What is that very large brown and green thing, along the horizon, behind the helicopter?
BT (Lincolnshire)

[Whirlygig]

I wondered about that too Bertie! How very strange! It doesn't look very friendly so perhaps best to avoid if you encounter one!

There's something which looks very similar (although much smaller) in Sheringham but I don't think it's the same!

Cheers

Whirls

[flyer43]

What is that very large brown and green thing, along the horizon, behind the helicopter?

That is White Combe, with Black Combe very close to it and slightly further right. There are many more of those lumpy bits in this area as well, but in this case they were sufficiently far from the operating area to not cause a problem in CAVOK and reasonably calm conditions.

Bertie, maybe I'm missing something here??

[What Limits]

Flyer, Bertie is too subtle for us. I think he bemoans the fact that Linclonshire is flat and Cumbria is lumpy. Having said that Lincolnshire has its fair share of weather phenomena that we would normally associate with mountainous areas.

The other thing that Lincolnshire has a lot of, of particular interest to HEMS drivers, is fast moving heavy metal!

Got your TCAS yet Bertie? Scary isn't it!!

[Bertie Thruster]

Flyer: what you are missing is the Fens!

Whirlgig, I think that ridge at Sheringham is just a heap of terminal morrain (ie a dump of gravel!) Even those "hills" don't exist further west where I used to live, by the marshes at Overy Staithe.

[Bertie Thruster]

WL; by "weather phenomena", do you mean "rain"?!

Fast straight flat narrow roads, lined with deep ditches. Mad, impatient 'drivers'. Our score down here is 2500+ vehicle incidents in last 5 years!

TCAS fit very soon. Can't wait! (though low level fast pointy activity here seems less of late. Too busy elsewhere?)

Hills! I do miss them. But not the 'Ben' at night, in snow of course, pre NVG!

[flyer43]

Bertie& WL

Thanks for the explanation. Having spent the last two weeks driving and climbing up and down even bigger lumpy bits than the ones in the picture your subtlety certainly escaped me. However, now I am back home in Wiltshire, I can appreciate it more......
My main flying experience has mostly been over water ...... not too many tall, lumpy bits there other than the obvious ones such as offshore installations etc. However, the weather phenomenae were occasionally exciting!

Wouldn't mind getting into EMS myself, although I guess lack recency and age would be against me!