Hmm, as someone who has spent a fair amount of time in the hills (Scotland rather than Cumbria, but the terrain is similar) I can see this might provide some limited usefulness where time is critical (Heart attack, serious bleeding) to stabilise the casualty until the SAR/AAmb team can get there, but as others have said, getting the jet pack to the nearest location to the casualty will take time. I had a friend who had a heart attack on the hill, his friends did (unsuccessful) CPR, but having quick access to a defibrillator might have saved him, but they were 10 miles from the nearest road.

Most MRT callouts are for minor non-life threatening injuries or lost walkers (and drones are great for the latter).

I also doubt it's usefulness in more mountainous terrain - you're not going to use one of them on a crag for example

I could see the use of this technology in an unmanned drone to bring equipment to a scene in place of the EMTs /. Paramedics having to carry it up a hill or over rough terrain. This would allow them to reach the patient sooner with the plus of quickly receiving additional needed equipment if required. A good way to get any extraneous equipment back down the mountain. Just a thought.

As an aside:
One bright guy suggested a stretcher with electric motors driving reversible fans much like bow and stern thrusters on ships to stabilize the stretcher on a hoist cable. You would only need a battery large enough to power it for perhaps 10 minutes max. ( we have all seen videos of wildly spinning stretchers.). The snag at the time was how they would be controlled a problem which todays computer technology may have an easy solution for.
It was an interesting discussion point during a boring night shift as various configurations were debated and sketched out. We decided upon 2 tubes 4-6 inch in diameter about 2 feet long each containing an entire system which could be snapped on the front and back of any stretcher with a small controller snapped on the side.
This was in the early 90s before computer tech had developed to today's level of sophistication. Perhaps today it could be totally automatic using a basic “heading hold” program.
It was all soon forgotten and nothing was sent up the food chain as the “High Priced Help” were, at the time, the type who actively discouraged suggestions from the coal face. “If it was a good idea WE would have thought of it already!”

Albatross,

Company in Colorado has made it happen.
Vita Inclinata (vitatech.co)

Thanks for the info.
Should have copyrighted or patented the idea! (just joking).
I assume a much smaller version of the system would be sufficient to stabilize a stretcher or other sling / hoist load.
Cheers
Albatross

Perhaps suitable for such a large land mass where there are more HEMS aircraft than SAR cabs? In the UK a good number of the HEMS cabs are at the same airfields as the SAR aircraft. Forget the longline and use the hoist that is already available and paid for, just sat waiting for a task! I could get onboard with that idea Jim if UK SAR was at max capacity but it’s far from it and an expensive asset to just there waiting for Retrival jobs while the UK spends even more money training another group of aviators to do what’s already available?!

Those HEMS units that decided to go for fitting hoists to their new airframes (Yorkshire and the H145 for example) simply found that the cost and training requirement to attain proficiency ~(albeit a limited 'fixed line' tasking, not reel them in) were prohibitive for the few occasions when they might wish to use it. That and the CAA not being keen on the idea set it aside, perhaps forever.

145 winch
 

Slightly off topic - PANews, you'll know, did the Met ever use their winch in anger?

As far as I am aware it was a similar story of 'not worth the effort' but they did dust it off. Most training was aimed at the fast roping. But if the wheel comes off the gear will not be fitted anyway so they will simply deliver the 'troops' to a rooftop from a low hover from whichever 145 is in the air.

They say people should check out and learn from times past....but they do not .... put it in the store is exactly what happened with the winch they fitted to the Bell 222 on delivery in 1980 - that saw even less attempts at training.

As with the Jet Pack, gear that is in the wrong place at the time of need simply does not get used. The best rescue the Met ever did in the 222 was rescuing a worker from the roof of a burning power station in April 1992. No equipment, no training, they opened the door from a low hover and invited the gent to step inside where it was cooler.

No mean feat from a helicopter that notoriously was unable to hover!