I have another theory. Herts AA put out a press release Monday to mark 900 missions in a tad over three years. So that's 300 a year roughly.
Let's compare to other UK AAs.. Here's one - I found a story from Warwickshire & Northants celebrating their 9,000th mission on 2nd September 2010 having started in 2003. So that's 9,000 in 7 years, so 1,285 a year, say four times Hertfordshire's rate.
How do other UK air ambulances compare? Is Hertfordshire a "low utilisation" operation and thus ripe for their Explorer to be shipped to Dubai for an airshow?
Helihub, I suspect that what you have here is lies, damn lies and statistics. On another thread one contributor listed WNAA as having a 60% stand down rate, which is extraordinarily high for an Air ambulance operation.
Knowing a little about how the various charities work, I
suspect that WNAA have some sort of self-task arrangement, where they monitor 999 calls and decide if they are needed and subsequently launch. Herts definitely relies on a paramedic staffed tasking desk, and Cliff Gale et al have worked hard to improve the quality of tasking for Essex and Herts, rather than the quantity. I get the uneasy feeling that WNAA are rather more interested in launching at the drop of a hat, which strikes me as rather pointless.
In the summer I was running a training event in Nuneaton. One of the guys attending complained of a tight chest. The onsite paramedics sat him down and before we knew it, the WNAA flew in. It turned out that he had overexerted himself at the gym the night before. This was probably listed as a full-on shout!
Anyway, as Cliff said, they already had another airframe in place. G-HAAT is a pretty striking colour scheme and probably a nice example, better to send that one.