Helicopter Heroes - Series 2

[scruggs]

Hi folks,

Just thought some of you might be interested to know that the second series of Helicopter Heroes following the Yorkshire Air Ambulance will be starting Monday August 25th, BBC1, 0915. Apparently there will be 20 episodes.
Apologies if this has been previously posted.

Cheers

S

[topendtorque]

Heroes huh?

Isn't England pretty much operating a day behind Orstrailya.
just a thought?

[firebird_uk]

Let's hope this series isn't like the first with 20 minutes of content spread into an hours TV by constantly telling you what's coming up and what just happened.

I appreciate it's formatted that way for when it's shown on channels with adverts like Dave, but it makes watching it on BBC like watching a show for those with no short term memory.

Then again looking at when it's aired perhaps that's who it is aimed at.

Then again looking at when it's aired perhaps that's who it is aimed at. :}

[topendtorque]

Then again looking at when it's aired perhaps that's who it is aimed at.

Then again looking at when it's aired perhaps that's who it is aimed at.http://static.pprune.org/images/smilies/badteeth.gif


Like that, good laugh to start the day cheers tet


http://static.pprune.org/images/statusicon/user_online.gif http://static.pprune.org/images/buttons/report.gif (http://www.pprune.org/report.php?p=4337071)

[Skidkid]

Isn't England pretty much operating a day behind Orstrailya

Not at Beijing!!

[topendtorque]

Not at Beijing!!

Pay that.
These threads are oft inhabited by newbies looking for advice, well there are two inspirational things that they could take home from Beijing amogst all of the outstanding stuff I mean.

1) Reaction time. Oz's Sally McLellan out of the blocks in .138 of a second.

2) Determination. USA's swimmer Michael Phelps. This kid as a fifteen year old visited the Sydney Olympics, was tremendously inspired, already had a swim coach and I guess a rich daddy, however, he went home and said to his coach, that he was gonna be a successful Olyimpian.

True grit, if you wish and try hard enough, you can.:ok:

[Bravo73]

2) Determination. USA's swimmer Michael Phelps. This kid as a fifteen year old visited the Sydney Olympics, was tremendously inspired, already had a swim coach and I guess a rich daddy, however, he went home and said to his coach, that he was gonna be a successful Olyimpian.

You couldn't be further from the truth. Michael Phelps came from a working class suburb of Baltimore and his parents went through a messy divorce in 1994. He was subsequently brought up by his mum.

And he was competing at the Sydney Olympics! (At the age of 15.)

[topendtorque]

goddamn, and there was small tapping at the back of my presumptuous head when I wrote that in misguided form. I'll just change the small tap to a big mallet.
looks like 'the kid' gets to be a better demonstration of initiative than ever. a clear example of fine endouver.

[Flaxton Flyer]

"1) Reaction time. Oz's Sally McLellan out of the blocks in .138 of a second."

Still lost though! ;)

[Skidkid]

I never cease to be amazed by PPRune!

scruggs helpfully provides us with some information about a future TV programme. Within a few hours, the thread is diverted into a bit of pommy bashing followed by a discussion about Olympic athletes.

Marvellous - great entertainment.

P.S. I went to Sydney once and was also tremendously inspired. But only by the amber nectar. hic

[Ray Stawynch]

Skid mate

I went to Sydney, too, and spent a month lost in translation at King's Cross. I've never had so much VB or 'entertained' so many Girlie Olympians......although I hope they were girlies....bugger.....

[telecat]

Nic to see the "Pistonheads" "Speed Matters" sticker on the Promo's.

[topendtorque]

the thread is diverted into a bit of pommy bashing followed by a discussion about Olympic athletes.

very much tongue in cheek for my part there, a great colleague, business partner and mate of mine who went by the nickname 'Possum' was a pom, and very sadly fell off the perch just recently.

He was certainly some sort an athlete in the amber nectar area, but with great stoicism and courage he told the quack to shove the extra treatment for the sake of a few extra months or maybe a couple of years.

He had left England as a youing fella (with some friendly advice from the local constabulary I might add), drove great big bull-dozers in west Oz to get a stake together to then learn rotary in Florida. Then back to the NT for a job.
He'd have had quite a chuckle at someone trying to work out the diff between girlie and girl in the cross.

[malc4d]

Anyone know what type of helmet they are using in the show ?

[[email protected]]

Ah good a new YAA series - I look forward to seeing all the winching:)

[Droopystop]

I have to say (and bear in mind that I wasn't there and even the Beeb can over egg a situation in the name of drama) that there have been one or two jobs shown on Helicopter Heroes that I was surprised that they didn't get a SAR machine involved. Maybe they tried but the SAR cab was busy or bust or too slow. I can see why they might want a winch. But the pros and cons of that is another story.

But it's good to see helicopters being shown in a good light on the TV and hats off to all those guys at Yorkshire AA.

[pplh]

I agree with Droopystop - not really the best set up for the some of the mountain rescues they were doing...
Not bad altogether but its a shame the BBC have had to bulk up a 30 minute show into a 45 minute one!

[winchman]

Having waited myself for over an hour and a half waiting for a SAR cab to turn up in the Peaks, it's pointless calling sometimes which is very unfortunate... I still have a mate at YAA and he said that there are a few good AA/SAR cooperation jobs being shown in the series where the AA cant land due to the terrain..... Coming up, a big welldone to both Air ambulances and SAR for the work you do.:D

[winchman]

Just been watching todays Heli heroes and felt after all the bitching that goes on, here on this site, how well the air ambulance and SAR crews worked together.... Well done everyone keep up the good work!!!:D

BBC - BBC One Programmes - Helicopter Heroes, Series 2, Episode 15 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00dhyfp)

Can see now why some AA's would welcome a winch.

[[email protected]]

But yet again today we had a situation where we are airborne on training, the AA flys past en route to a job on a coastal path 10 mins to the North. We finish training 30 mins later. Just as we sign the aircraft in we get scrambled to the same job because the AA can get the paramedics to the casualty but not extract the cas from the scene.

The end result is that the elderly cas has to spend an extra 45 mins to an hour on a cold hillside because no-one took the terrain into consideration when allocating a response. Ambulance Controllers need to use their brains rather than a checklist that seems to have SAR helicopters at the bottom.

[vortexadminman]

True Crab True, But that would rely on all sorts of agencies actually communicating, we still get that all screwed up in the military................
They could just give them a winch as they have in Switzerland etc where it all works fine:ok:

[swerve]

you are all missing the point here - daytime TV serves a great purpose - been off sick the last few days - can't sleep at night 2 mins in front of the constant repeating of clips and whats up next what we have seen etc sound asleep - job done.
On a serious note - potential for good to come out of such programmes - but utter crap here from the production team - stretching weak story lines and treating the audience as dim wits - the constant repeating of story lines and whats to come drives me nuts - just show us the programme and don't keep repeating everything!

Tin hat on

[Thud_and_Blunder]

Crab,

Mostly true, but a few points worth adding:

- the ambulance controllers are as good as the information they're given. In this afternoon's case, the initial responders told ambulance control they had walked up past at least one area "big and flat enough to get the helicopter in". They're the ones on scene, they have to be believed.

- on our way to the coast, we did advise you and your ops of the nature of the task to which we were travelling. You may remember we even stated that you might wish to consider the possibility that your resources would be more appropriate, subject to what we found on arrival.

Having said all that, we didn't prolong the on-site assessment and soon affirmed what we'd considered en-route: it was a job best suited to SAR. We could've acted thick and "gone it alone", but that wasn't in the best interests of the patient. Very glad we didn't choose to lug her up the hill to where we'd parked - you probably didn't see the Coastguard stumble and fall as he helped carry the stretcher down the easier slope to your Sits site.

Pics are on a CD and on their way to you tomorrow, or with the 2 paramedics who're coming over for a famil very soon (both of whom were on todays crew, btw). I'll pop a couple over on the Pics thread here, too.

[Droopy]

Controllers need to use their brains rather than a checklist

There you have it. Applies to both onshore emergency services using air support. :ugh:

[vortexadminman]

Or God the CAA etc etc just give ambo s and police winches............ and of course somebody paying for it. What harm can that do !!! more winches in the UK is good for everybody. Being a mil bloke still the only people I can think that will annoy is US!!! The mil thinking that winching is MIL job, where as it's not really or should not be at all. RANT over.

[charliegolf]

Not negative by nature, but where is the heroism. Bloke falls off church, goes to hospital.

Girly falls of motorbike, goes to hospital.

More of same in that episode. Had they quick-rigged a strop on that white van to get the guy out-that would have been good.

Being quicker than a road ambulance is a boon, but not heroic.

CG

[[email protected]]

Thud, strangely enough as soon as we heard where you were going to we knew we would get the job eventually but we can't really follow you around trying to poach jobs :)- we have to wait until we are tasked through the ARCCK (although for urgent cases we could self scramble on the basis of information received).

It sounds like the ground party are the ones who need to visit us or you to understand the limitations of heli ops. You did find a place to land but that wasn't the issue, it was the location of the casualty and her extraction that was the problem. Surely they looked at the slope and realised a carry out wasn't feasible. We used to get WCAS paramedics fly with us every Friday but that seems to have died down - it promoted good heli awareness and an understanding of when SAR was the first choice not the last.

Next time you could call Chiv radio and make a formal request that we can then action quickly - we would have diverted from training and got there much quicker.

We did see the CG fall over - that was a result of a faff on our part (comms failure on Polycon) we wanted to winch the husband away from the overhead of the casualty and then move in to her. They tried to bring cas to heli:ok:

Look forward to the photos - cheers.:ok:

[Droopystop]

Perhaps this is where Harmonisation is missing a trick - I am sure that there are opportunities to be more efficient by harmonising all air assets. But at the end of the day, it all comes down to the person who answers the phone. And whoever that may be will always be constrained by their local knowledge, training and operating procedures.

Besides which even a grid reference and an OS map is not always adequate to decide on which is the best asset, not least because the grid reference is often wrong.

In this case it seems a shame that there was a delay between the AA suggesting using a SAR asset and ARCCK actually scrambling Crab. I hope the casualty is making a swift recovery.

[DMW2007]

Hi, stupid question time..... The original post stated this series started Bank Holiday August BBC1. I'm in the east of England and it wasn't on our version of BBC1. At the time I just assumed it was regional differences but haven't seen it listed since. Now seems we are up to EP15 and everyone else on the forum seems to be watching it. Can someone tell me what time/day of the week it is on terrestrial TV??... or is it just available on line via the i-player??

[Whirlygig]

It is on BBC1 (East); I've seen a few - it's on in the morning just after 0900 when most people are at work!

Cheers

Whirls

[[email protected]]

Droopystop - I think this is why the MCA are still taking industrial action because if you don't pay the people that answer the phone enough, you won't get quality people with that local knowledge and training and common sense.

Good controllers are worth their weight in gold because they can save so much time and effort by allocating the right reponse first time round.

[[email protected]]

Vortexadminman - if you gave them winches, they would need bigger and more expensive helicopters plus a load of extra training. Rega (the Swiss outfit) use either EC 145s or A109 K2s, whereas most UK AAs have smaller machines like 105s, 135s or 520s.

In order to pay for the extra capability they would either have to raise far more money from donations (more tricky in a worsening economic climate) or charge for their services. For the number of occasions when it would pay dividends it is probably not economically viable.

[Bertie Thruster]

Didn't REGA use winch fitted Allouettes successfully in the past? Full NVG too!

[[email protected]]

Bertie - I can just imagine what the CAA would say about single engine winching ops:)

I am sure they did use the Allouette (either the III or Llama I expect) but according to their website they have gone up-market.

[quichemech]

Crab,

Nobody in the UK uses a 520 for Ambulance work, do you mean a 902 by any chance? Much bigger machine with 2 engines.:rolleyes:

[[email protected]]

quichemech - yes that is exactly what I meant - age is catching up:) I had NOTAR on my mind but with the wrong numbers.

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

mil thinking that winching is MIL job, where as it's not really or should not be at all


Not true - but perhaps true to say that SAR (mil or civ) regard winching as a SAR job, because we know how tricky winching can be (not all the time, but every so often).

On top of the points Crab makes, having winches on all helos (ie Police and Air Amb) could well create extra confusion - how would an Ambulance Service controller decide which winch-equipped helo to send? From the examples given, they often have difficulty making the basic decision about whether an incident requires a winch or not - so to have different aircraft which can winch different weights over different distances in different weather conditions could be v confusing! At least at the moment every winch-equipped SAR helo has a (reasonably) powerful winch with a reasonably long cable and is equipped to fly in most conditions.

[vortexadminman]

True about confusion but I am sure but that could easily be addressed by good old fashioned briefings for briefings sake!!!. Did not mean to imply that Police/Ambo s have the same winching capabilities as a SAR aircraft. Crab quite correctly states that it would require bigger cabs to do that, just that adding a winch would enable them to move the casualty a few feet in some cases so the aircraft can land to load the casualty on, therefore leaving SAR cabs to do what they do best.....SAR.:ok:

[Anthony Supplebottom]

BBC1 7:30pm tonight. :ok:

[jayteeto]

Crab, visits for the controllers doesnt work. You assume they will learn something............
PS, I dont want a winch, horses for courses. I want a small, quick reliable helicopter to do OUR job, Air Ambulancing, not SAR.

[Thud_and_Blunder]

pssst - jay, read the dates! Someone's resurrected a 4-year-old thread.

[jackjack08]

Four year old thread maybe...but it seems there's more to come, new series is due in late 2012 and the next new series is due mid 2013.
Somebody, somewhere, must be doing something right, as it's been going for ages.

Keep up the good work YAA.

[jayteeto]

Whoops, time warp!

[rotorboater]

I flew with them in 2008 - hope I don't have to do that again:roll eyes:

(Great guys and saved me a lot of further pain!)

[Bladecrack]

Controllers need to use their brains rather than a checklist

From what I've seen having visited the local ambulance control that task us, this is positively discouraged. Controllers, many with numerous years of experience do whatever the duty manager tells them to do on the day, (depending on which side of the bed they got out that morning, the phase of the moon, whether they are pro or anti-HEMS etc). The patient's best interests rarely come into it... :ugh: