London's Air Ambulance

[ChristiaanJ]

New here, and liked this :
London's Air Ambulance - First helipad landing, gearing up for our move - YouTube

I'm an ancient avionics flight test support engineer, having spent time mostly on the AB212 (Spanish Navy autopilot system and certifying the Bristow single-pilot IFR system) at the time.

Looking at the video, they mention night flying and landing....
Anybody here can give me an idea of what their bird is equipped with, avionics-wise, and how they operate and navigate in an urban environment, and close to the LHR area?

Somehow I doubt it's only a handheld GPS......

I'm aware of some of the nasty EHMS accidents reported in the US by the NTSB, and I hope they've taken all those issues 'on-board'....

If this is the wrong place and site for such a discussion, maybe somebody here has a useful link?

CJ

[Helinut]

Pending any response from someone who is current with the unit, and unless things have changed:

Their night operations are limited to positioning and recoveries to lit helipads. They do not do night HEMS, nor does any other UK HEMS at the moment. The position with respect to night HEMS may change in the UK, once EASA rules apply, but who knows. There would be special issues though to doing night HEMS in London which make it less likely that the London HEMS will ever do night HEMS.

The airframe is quite old and has no special nav kit, and by comparison with other UK HEMS charities it is short of money. Nav uses pre-calculated radials and distance from the originating pad and a bog standard GPS. SVFR in the London zones is very much a visual environment using lots of available landmarks.

[ChristiaanJ]

Helinut,
Thanks for the info.... let's hope somebody else can contribute some more.

As to money, I contributed only a tiny snippet... I'll have to look up their site again to see what I can do... living many miles away, but with a soft spot still for helis and London.

CJ

[Ian Corrigible]

Looks like the LAA had a busy day. (Macca really has to put a stop to these pop-up gigs.)

30,000 patients treated by London's Air Ambulance (http://www.verticalmag.com/news/article/30-000-patients-treated-by-Londons-Air-Ambulance#.UmfRLKjD-is)

I/C