>>My name is Mike Houtz; I'm a pilot with Life Lion.
Our aircraft can in fact fly in snow and in other precipitation.
Much of it depends on whether those are icing conditions or non-icing conditions.
Any time the temperature is at or near the freezing point (zero degrees Celsius) and
there's visible moisture (a cloud, rain, snow), anything near the freezing point, whenever
that touches the aircraft, that cloud or that snow, it will stick to the aircraft and be
ice; icing conditions.
We are prohibited from flying in icing conditions (those conditions that I just described),
so we cannot fly in those conditions.
Now can there be snow and there not be those conditions?
Yes.
Sometimes the temperature is so cold and there's snow that it will not adhere to the aircraft
because it's just too cold.
There are other times where the temperature is actually above, well above, freezing and
there's snow, but it will not adhere to the aircraft.
So it is...it is a...I have to use the tools here to determine whether you're in those
conditions or not.
And there's forecast and there's pilot snapshot and I can put my cursor on any of the major
airports in Pennsylvania and get the weather report at that airport right now and the forecast
for the next 2-3-6 hours in order to adequately flight plan.
And these are the tools that I look at quickly whenever a flight request comes in to the
communications center.
They call me and they say, "Mike, can we fly from Williamsport to State College?"
wherever.
And I will look at this, I will look at the radar and some other flight planning tools;
how much fuel it would take to get there and so forth.
But I'd have to do that rather quickly because we don't want to keep them waiting a long
time and I make a decision either to go or not to go based on the regulatory requirements
that I have which there's a long list of them, the safety, and efficiency of flight.
Life Lion Hershey, this is Mike.
May I help you?
Alright, I'll check weather and get right back with you.
Alright, we have a flight request to go from here to State College Mount Nittany Medical
Center...back to Hershey Medical Center.
So let me see; we got some rain in the area, but there are no thunder storms along that
route of flight.
And the weather report at State College is 300 foot broken cloud ceiling, 3 miles visibility,
light rain and mist.
Ok our minimums up there; for the instrument approach is one mile visibility and 200 foot
ceiling, so we could get in there.
I'm looking at the forecast...the forecast during the time period is acceptable within
our limitations.
And since its cold, I'm going to check the icing level.
And in there I'll be going at about 5,000 feet so it looks like the icing level is between
7,000 and 9,000 feet so I'll be under the icing level so I can do that flight.
Then back to Hershey, I want to look at Harrisburg airport.
And the forecast for that period is 800 foot cloud ceiling and 2 miles visibility, so I
can get back in here because at the airport it can be down to one mile and actually our
approach into here can be down to one mile.
[ Pause ] Yeah that flight request to Mount Nittany Medical Center, we can do that, so
just page us up.
Thanks.