Bushy (post 28), 404 Titan (post 26),
You have summed up exactly what I was going to reply to in Jamairs post about the usefulness of piston twins in aeromed.
The line about 'tired old airframes from 30 years ago, certified back in the day' gets trotted out far to often, and nobody that has brung it out has defined why this is the case. An aircraft with 6000 hours would more than likely be on near new engines (assuming tbo 2000hrs) and the engineering tolerances in the airframe would not be so far gone to cause a negative climb performance. If you can explain to me why this should be the case, I am very willing to listen.
There are aeromed Kingairs out there with 20,000+ hours on them. And yet, Kingairs are able to crash just as poorly as anything that leaves the ground.
I have had a failure in a chieftain 700' high after takeoff with 6 pob, baggage and full mains in north west NSW in january in the rain, and the aircraft performed exactly as I expected. Once securing the engine, it was able to climb straight ahead until reaching 1000' where i returned for an uneventful landing.
In a perfect world with no financial constraints, I am sure that the government charged with transporting patients around the state for whatever reason would love to have everyone ferried around in the latest turbine/turboprop offering from Rayethon/Piaggio/Cessna/Pilatus/whoever but nobody in the government and the private sector can do that. The RFDS are a charity (one also well funded by the government) and mostly concern themselves with Pri-1's (yes, I know they do much more!). Pri-2/3's are sometimes carried by them and by other private sector companies charged with that duty by the state government. Much like the ambo's in sydney, there are also private companies driving around lesser (older/slower/lower medical equipment levels) 'patient transfer' vans that have government contracts.
I cannot say it better than bushy -
I am saddened to see that some posts on here appear to to criticise the integrity of the operation, (dung heap etc) and by association, the people involved.