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Wiltshire Air Ambulance more woes.

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Wiltshire Air Ambulance more woes.

Old 10th Jan 2019, 21:48
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Originally Posted by lynx-effect
I'm amazed by all the people that saw it coming. These are good people with good morals just having a blip. Who hasn't?
Sorry but you’re either part of the charity, naive or a member of the public hoping their donation has not been abused. HEMS charities are riddled with self serving, greedy and sometimes fraudulent activities by board members. Wasteage, back handers, dodgy deals abound. While the pilots are amongst the highest qualified but poorest paid in Europe, on and offshore. Third party providers continue to keep wages down as do directly employing charities using the old ‘poor us’ excuses whilst spending ever increasing amounts on ‘centres of excellence’ (they can’t all be) and larger less suitable aircraft increasingly unable to land in urban confined areas. And it’s this amazing bias in spending that needs to be investigated nationwide. Which board members have their fingers in places they shouldn’t. Have ‘anonymous’ donations been used to guarantee building contracts, this would be fraud surely. Is having an aoc controlled by a board member necessary when several existing aoc’s with appropriate approvals offered to provide their assistance both in the past and recently? The cloak of charity being abused. Of course nobody dare ask any questions. How could you, we’re saving lives here. Doesn’t mean you can break laws, on numerous levels. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
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Old 10th Jan 2019, 23:34
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Hedski,
You raise number of issues that do need to be examined !

TF
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Old 11th Jan 2019, 04:44
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Originally Posted by Hedski


Sorry but you’re either part of the charity, naive or a member of the public hoping their donation has not been abused. HEMS charities are riddled with self serving, greedy and sometimes fraudulent activities by board members. Wasteage, back handers, dodgy deals abound. While the pilots are amongst the highest qualified but poorest paid in Europe, on and offshore. Third party providers continue to keep wages down as do directly employing charities using the old ‘poor us’ excuses whilst spending ever increasing amounts on ‘centres of excellence’ (they can’t all be) and larger less suitable aircraft increasingly unable to land in urban confined areas. And it’s this amazing bias in spending that needs to be investigated nationwide. Which board members have their fingers in places they shouldn’t. Have ‘anonymous’ donations been used to guarantee building contracts, this would be fraud surely. Is having an aoc controlled by a board member necessary when several existing aoc’s with appropriate approvals offered to provide their assistance both in the past and recently? The cloak of charity being abused. Of course nobody dare ask any questions. How could you, we’re saving lives here. Doesn’t mean you can break laws, on numerous levels. Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Interesting ...it could be a lot lot worse it could be the US EMS model. Where it’s more driven by Health insurance - patients horizontally strapped (not needing air transportation) in ummm conditions we rather not fly in and subsequent (fatal) accidents.

The only rumbles / concerns we heard of or questioned is the Children’s AA or TheAA over recent years...as it’s been discussed here and even on BBc1 7 o clock One Show ( thousands spent on having Strictly Come Dancing judges teaching dancing to the staff of said charity outside Rugby one Xmas and one volunteer or member of public saying their methods of muscling in on fundraising could else to disaster).

cheers


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Old 11th Jan 2019, 04:48
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Originally Posted by Hedski
They were warned and didn't listen. The CAA weren't happy about granting Heli Charter's AOC the required permissions, in fact withdrew it on occasion. A company who let everyone down running the major golf event at Sandwich, but the biggest crook in the house bailed months ago taking the Bell dealership with him. Sadly he's still sliming his way round in a 429/505 trying to blag it like he did on a PPL doing 'experience' flights for so many years.
i thought the owner of HC was ill with cancer ( not terminally) hence why the Bell dealership went elsewhere. Btw the other individual you speak of is a member on here.

I’m not batting for Bell ( even though one has a soft heart for their legacy Uh-1/ 204/5/212/412/Yankee) but hope sincerely it’s not going to be the end of Bell 429 as HEMS in U.K...

cheers and Happy New Year.
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Old 11th Jan 2019, 09:55
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While the pilots are amongst the highest qualified but poorest paid in Europe, on and offshore.
This is becoming increasingly apparent with the advent of Multi Pilot ops requiring ATPL for command AND IR AND NVIS experience AND P1 Multi time AND HEMS experience etc...

When the Offshore market recovers, prepare for a pilot exodus.
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Old 11th Jan 2019, 17:37
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Just like the post re Specialists continual advertising on the 2019 jobs thread. They just don’t get it. But have been told.... yet refuse to pay anything like the going rate.
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Old 11th Jan 2019, 20:23
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Hedski,
You raise number of issues that do need to be examined !
And verified!

Do you have an axe to grind, Hedski.
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Old 11th Jan 2019, 22:29
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NOPE Have never had anything to do with said establishment.
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Old 12th Jan 2019, 17:35
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I'll be sorry to see the Bell 429 go, it's a very capable aircraft. The 902 has seen its day it would of struggled in the temperature this last summer.
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Old 13th Jan 2019, 08:36
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Originally Posted by Professor Bublinsky
I'll be sorry to see the Bell 429 go, it's a very capable aircraft. The 902 has seen its day it would of struggled in the temperature this last summer.
The 902 has proven itself an excellent safe & capable hems aircraft over the last decade or so, but the more space you provide the more kit/people they will add. It’s hard to go ‘back’ to a 902 once crews have got used to carrying an extra crew member and additional kit. The 429 is perhaps a marginal step up from a 207 engined 902 at best - it uses the same engines! It’s essentially a more expensive slightly larger 902. If you’re going to spend the extra money you may as well get a 145/169 and reap the real benefits of additional power and space.
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Old 24th Jan 2019, 08:37
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And it just gets better.....

https://www.spirefm.co.uk/news/local...pounds-a-year/

So having spanked £5m on a facility clearly not worth £5m and insisted on having own aoc, hows that process going..., now those with their hands in the till see another avenue....?
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Old 9th Jul 2019, 10:58
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Thumbs up

It's back!

https://www.wiltshireairambulance.co...ll-429-update/
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Old 9th Jul 2019, 20:29
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about time! no thanks to management.
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Old 10th Jul 2019, 04:51
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is the 902 not a better machine ?
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Old 29th Sep 2019, 12:04
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The woes at the Wilts Air Ambulance made the front page of our local rag this week. Seems there are still problems with the AOC certification.

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/new...g-certificate/
https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/new...air-ambulance/.
The comments make interesting reading too.
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Old 29th Sep 2019, 13:09
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Nothing surprises me anymore with this outfit. A press release back in January told us that the granting of their AOC was imminent and yet 10 months down the line it's still not happened. They trot out the same PR response everytime " We're continuing to respond with our RRV's"

I dread to think what their balance sheet is looking like, they've been funding 2 aircraft during the majority of that period and only delivering a very limited service. It'd be interesting to divde the charity's total costs with the number of incidents attended to provide a cost per incident figure - I shudder to think what that would be!!

We all know that the CAA would only resist or delay issuing an AOC if there were issues with the operation that still needed resolving - the CAA is a first class regulator and if they see fit not to issue an AOC there'll be a very good reason why.
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Old 29th Sep 2019, 14:51
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As a (small) supporter of this charity I feel the CAA & the charity should issue a statement stating why the AOC remains delayed, as stated (I am in the aviation business) there must be problems.
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Old 29th Sep 2019, 17:13
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I know it's a few months old, but this report, especially paragraph 4, if true doesn't cover the charity in glory. The Tail Rotor incident mentioned here is currently the subject of an AAIB investigation.

https://www.wiltshire999s.co.uk/wilt...five-weeks-on/
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Old 7th Oct 2019, 12:34
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I still question whether senior managers should be at their post. Please resign and go!!
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Old 7th Oct 2019, 21:01
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How when one senior manager is writing said AOC in a manner that makes him indispensable so he will never be able to be got rid of....
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