Interesting topic:
Personally, my thoughts would be the following for your standard VFR pilot... however it depends on you personally. I understand that a Mercy flight is one where you know that a rule or multiple rules are going to be broken during the flight.
No:
Fly a twin without endorsement
Fly at night without rating
Yes:
Fly without a weather forecast
Fly across an international border
Fly over water without raft or survival gear
The difference between a No and a Yes in my mind are around whether you took off knowing that you were not qualified for the flight that was about to take place and whether or not you would be accepting a large amount of risk in conducting such flight.
It's just a risk equation. If you were standing next to a Seneca, your friend has a heart attach and you were 1 hour by Seneca from the nearest medical aid and you were 4 hours by car, plus you have a few twin hours in your log book, a a few hours flying unofficialyl with your mate, no endorsement, but you know in your mind that you would be very safe, then that's up to you.... I can't see insurance paying out if it goes pear shaped though.
Same goes with the night flight. You haven't flown at night, are not confident and don't know if you'd make it safely - then don't do it! To the contrary, if you have a few night hours at night, but personally guarantee yourself that you will be 100% safe, then you'd think about it. Remember you kill yourself AND your mate if it all goes wrong and you might need to scrape your bank account for a new aircraft when insurance won't pay out.
I am aware of a REAL mercy flight that took place some years ago and it might be in his book. If I recall correctly Ben Buckley flew a young child into Essendon when the child had their leg severely severed in an accident. The weather was not suitable for VFR into Essendon but Ben insisted that he could get in there. The tower / radar advised him to not attempt to land because he would not be able to. I believe he did manage to successfully land and the child was rushed to hospital. Unfortunately the operation wasn't successful and the child lost their leg.
The closest I have personally had to a mercy flight was where I was phoned by the Police in an emergency situation where an aircraft was desperately needed as PolAir was unavailable. Due to where I was standing at the time and the fact that the aircraft was full of fuel and warmed up, I was able to be airborne within a minute. I knew nothing of the mission brief other than that a gunman was on the loose in a near-by town so I entered into the flight by not knowing which rules were going to be broken if any. A few small rules were broken during this flight and a succesful result followed, however I wouldn't like to be standing in front of CASA if things went bad!
Last edited by VH-XXX; 30th Nov 2012 at 02:57.