Victorain Air Ambulance Turns 50
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Victorain Air Ambulance Turns 50
Congratulations to the team at Victorian Air Ambulance on turning the big five zero.
Must be a few stories out in Ppruneland to be told from those that have flown for Executive Airlines, Pennair, Nicholas Skways, RFDS and Pelair on the contract.
Must be a few stories out in Ppruneland to be told from those that have flown for Executive Airlines, Pennair, Nicholas Skways, RFDS and Pelair on the contract.
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Come on Wally and Night Hawk. Where are the stories?? OK,finish the sentence "The flight I most remember was the night we got an emergency call out to go to........"
Here's another painting I did about a year ago.
Here's another painting I did about a year ago.
..................early one evening just prior to sunset some years ago now I/we where tasked to retrieve an elderly lady from a western country Vic town whom wasn't critical but the Dr's felt it would be in her best interest to be brought back to Melb that night. That's fine such was the case many a time.
Cruising westbound at 18K as the sun slowly sank towards the horizon a long line of TS's that where developing along an East-West line (more Sth of our track) along the Vic Sth East coast became more noticeable with the lightening being the main attraction for both the female paramedic & myself (there was only the two of us aboard on this job). Seeing as it was pretty much dark as we got closer to our destination I had planed for a straight in GNSS App to rwy 26, mainly to save time & complete the task before any influence was felt from that southward storm system. Slight to mod chop was experienced on decent but nothing out of the ordinary.
Well with good intentions all was going as planed until thru about 4000 ft or so on decent (whilst still visual) when all hell broke lose!!!!! We entered the most severe turb that I had ever experienced in over 30 yrs of plane driving. It was so sudden that my headset decided to do some aero's in the cockpit along with everything in the cockpit that wasn't nailed down! Instantly the noise was deafening as I went from the normal semi quiet cockpit to no head set & stuff hitting the cockpit roof as well as the two engines. I grabbed hold of the steering wheel with both hands as the autopilot said stuff you jack yr on yr own with this one buddy!!! The ASI & VSI where allover the place.
From the rear of the A/C came the secondary effect, the incredible yelling from my hapless female paramedic now being was louder than the two Pratts which I might add where now delivering max power to get us back up & out of hell!!!
She was beside herself with fear as I nearly was! With max power set & climbing away at a little above best climb rate (or the best I could manage)I headed for a break in the distant clouds I could just see ahead so as to stay as visual as possible as I didn't want to enter cloud if I could avoid it hand flying this bucking bull with the A/H dancing before my eyes!
The old Beech doesn't handle serv turb too well,it's built like the proverbial & rode very hard in the bumps
I managed to get a few semi intelligible syllables out to ATC advising them that I was discontinuing the GNSS App due severe turb. All the guy could say was confirm Ops normal!!!!.......sheeeeeezzz the last thing I had on my mind was having a nice caring chat to him right there & then!
I couldn't operate the GPS panel to re-set a course direct to EN as my hands would flail about the cockpit if I let go the steering wheel. So I took up an easterly heading for now as an accurate heading would have been impossible.
Once I got thru about 10000 ft it settled down to about normal sever turb & I managed to get 'george' back on line so I could compose myself.
By now I suddenly realized that my paramedic had been yelling out to me all that time to see if I was alright (& to get us out of there) but I was so focused keeping us upright that she basically wasn't even considered as being on board anymore!:-)
With ATC now back in the loop, the GPS programmed & my underwear re-arranged we headed back to EN in constant turb.
Once on the ground I got a big hug from the paramedic & we where both trembling a little.I also got the spanner men out to check the airframe as I was convinced that I added some more dihedral to what Mr Beech had designed into the airframe in the first place!
We had obviously gone down the leeward side by a fair distance I might add & in the clear of a mature line of TS's.
Once inside the control room of the Air Ambo's I noticed they where going thru the motions of tasking the Heli boys to do the same job.........dohhh!!!! Those whirly gig boys are just so good
Suffice to say the dear old duck stayed in the local hossy 'till the following day. Turns out she had a fractured hip with complications beyond the local country hossy's capabilities & that was why the Dr's wanted her back that night in Melb.........yeah right fractured hip in that sev turb, luckily the pilot & medic didn't up with more than that!
So there "AE" ,that's just one of numerous stories that am sure plenty of my colleges could expand on:-)
Wmk2
Footnote: No serv turb was foretasted that night otherwise it would have been most likely we wouldn't have even launched.
Cruising westbound at 18K as the sun slowly sank towards the horizon a long line of TS's that where developing along an East-West line (more Sth of our track) along the Vic Sth East coast became more noticeable with the lightening being the main attraction for both the female paramedic & myself (there was only the two of us aboard on this job). Seeing as it was pretty much dark as we got closer to our destination I had planed for a straight in GNSS App to rwy 26, mainly to save time & complete the task before any influence was felt from that southward storm system. Slight to mod chop was experienced on decent but nothing out of the ordinary.
Well with good intentions all was going as planed until thru about 4000 ft or so on decent (whilst still visual) when all hell broke lose!!!!! We entered the most severe turb that I had ever experienced in over 30 yrs of plane driving. It was so sudden that my headset decided to do some aero's in the cockpit along with everything in the cockpit that wasn't nailed down! Instantly the noise was deafening as I went from the normal semi quiet cockpit to no head set & stuff hitting the cockpit roof as well as the two engines. I grabbed hold of the steering wheel with both hands as the autopilot said stuff you jack yr on yr own with this one buddy!!! The ASI & VSI where allover the place.
From the rear of the A/C came the secondary effect, the incredible yelling from my hapless female paramedic now being was louder than the two Pratts which I might add where now delivering max power to get us back up & out of hell!!!
She was beside herself with fear as I nearly was! With max power set & climbing away at a little above best climb rate (or the best I could manage)I headed for a break in the distant clouds I could just see ahead so as to stay as visual as possible as I didn't want to enter cloud if I could avoid it hand flying this bucking bull with the A/H dancing before my eyes!
The old Beech doesn't handle serv turb too well,it's built like the proverbial & rode very hard in the bumps
I managed to get a few semi intelligible syllables out to ATC advising them that I was discontinuing the GNSS App due severe turb. All the guy could say was confirm Ops normal!!!!.......sheeeeeezzz the last thing I had on my mind was having a nice caring chat to him right there & then!
I couldn't operate the GPS panel to re-set a course direct to EN as my hands would flail about the cockpit if I let go the steering wheel. So I took up an easterly heading for now as an accurate heading would have been impossible.
Once I got thru about 10000 ft it settled down to about normal sever turb & I managed to get 'george' back on line so I could compose myself.
By now I suddenly realized that my paramedic had been yelling out to me all that time to see if I was alright (& to get us out of there) but I was so focused keeping us upright that she basically wasn't even considered as being on board anymore!:-)
With ATC now back in the loop, the GPS programmed & my underwear re-arranged we headed back to EN in constant turb.
Once on the ground I got a big hug from the paramedic & we where both trembling a little.I also got the spanner men out to check the airframe as I was convinced that I added some more dihedral to what Mr Beech had designed into the airframe in the first place!
We had obviously gone down the leeward side by a fair distance I might add & in the clear of a mature line of TS's.
Once inside the control room of the Air Ambo's I noticed they where going thru the motions of tasking the Heli boys to do the same job.........dohhh!!!! Those whirly gig boys are just so good
Suffice to say the dear old duck stayed in the local hossy 'till the following day. Turns out she had a fractured hip with complications beyond the local country hossy's capabilities & that was why the Dr's wanted her back that night in Melb.........yeah right fractured hip in that sev turb, luckily the pilot & medic didn't up with more than that!
So there "AE" ,that's just one of numerous stories that am sure plenty of my colleges could expand on:-)
Wmk2
Footnote: No serv turb was foretasted that night otherwise it would have been most likely we wouldn't have even launched.
[QUOTEMust be a few stories out in Ppruneland to be told from those that have flown for Executive Airlines, Pennair, Nicholas Skways, RFDS and Pelair on the contract. QUOTE]
Thread drift from Essendon but couldn't help throwing in a similar experience while flying a RAAF Lincoln bomber on a SAR in another era. A Tiger Moth was missing in the Whitsunday Passage and we searched for it. We found it in one piece on a tiny beach of one of the islands. The pilot was waving and had written "Help Snakes" in the sand.
We prepared to drop a storpedo with emergency supplies from the bomb bay of the Lincoln. Because of the shape of the small island we were forced to come in low while turning to avoid a headland. While at 200 feet and turning to line up, the aircraft slowly dropped the right wing and despite full aileron the wing kept on dropping even though we were at 140 knots which was a safe speed.
The only thing left to avoid hitting the sea was pull back both port throttles and full power on both starboard throttles and as much rudder as we could push to get the wing up. It is a long time ago now, but I recall we got the wings level about 100 ft above the water at the same time passing over the Tiger Moth and its pilot. There was no turbulence but it was obvious there was a huge downdraft in the lee of a small hill on the island.
We left the Tiger Moth pilot to his snakes and pissed off back to Townsville.
A boat picked him up next day and we lived to fly another day.
Thread drift from Essendon but couldn't help throwing in a similar experience while flying a RAAF Lincoln bomber on a SAR in another era. A Tiger Moth was missing in the Whitsunday Passage and we searched for it. We found it in one piece on a tiny beach of one of the islands. The pilot was waving and had written "Help Snakes" in the sand.
We prepared to drop a storpedo with emergency supplies from the bomb bay of the Lincoln. Because of the shape of the small island we were forced to come in low while turning to avoid a headland. While at 200 feet and turning to line up, the aircraft slowly dropped the right wing and despite full aileron the wing kept on dropping even though we were at 140 knots which was a safe speed.
The only thing left to avoid hitting the sea was pull back both port throttles and full power on both starboard throttles and as much rudder as we could push to get the wing up. It is a long time ago now, but I recall we got the wings level about 100 ft above the water at the same time passing over the Tiger Moth and its pilot. There was no turbulence but it was obvious there was a huge downdraft in the lee of a small hill on the island.
We left the Tiger Moth pilot to his snakes and pissed off back to Townsville.
A boat picked him up next day and we lived to fly another day.
Last edited by Centaurus; 19th May 2012 at 12:58.
