Hello and welcome to the STARS hangar. My name is John.
And I'm Greg, and we're really excited to have you here today for a virtual tour
of our exciting, amazing new helicopter, the Airbus H145.
We're thrilled to be renewing our aging fleet with these incredible new helicopters,
all thanks to the support of our very generous allies.
The H145 is the newest version of the BK117 helicopter,
which has flown tens of thousands of STARS missions over 35 years.
We're going to talk a little bit about the medical side of the helicopter in a moment,
but first come on this way and we'll take a look at the cockpit.
The H145 is quite a modern cockpit, where most of the information is displayed using multi-function displays,
including flight instrument information, flight navigation information;
there is an airborne-collision avoidance system incorporated into the aircraft.
Most notably, though, there's a dual four-axis autopilot, which really serves to increase the amount of
stabilization we can fly with. However, all these features, combined with a superior field of view,
including at night on NVGs (Night Vision Goggles), really contributes to increase our situational
awareness and our ability to serve our patients safely and effectively.
Thanks for joining me in the cockpit. Over to you, Greg.
Thanks, John. So welcome to the back of the helicopter.
If you want to come right on in with me here, I'll slide over.
So it's our privilege and commitment to care for the patients that are likely
having the worst day of their lives in the back of the helicopter here.
The patients that we're seeing are critically unwell, and as you can see,
we have a very spacious cabin, which is a custom installation by Aerolite, as well as leading-edge
future-proof medical equipment.
I just can't emphasize enough how much we appreciate the
support of our allies in allowing us to do this and care for these critical patients in the back.
In fact, i just finished transporting a patient on this very stretcher,
and they had a good outcome because of the ability for me to get to that patient
and truly provide the care that they required.
So let's head to the tail of the aircraft,
and I think John wants to talk about a few things there.
One of the new modern features of the H145 is what's called the fenestron.
Instead of a conventional tail rotor, there's actually a
tail rotor inside this shrouded environment here, which increases safety
when we're operating around the back of the aircraft.
But the aircraft is still incorporated with the same clamshell-style doors.
As you can see, when I open them up, they're huge. They allow us excellent access to the back of the
aircraft for loading and unloading the patient, as well as our equipment that's secured over on the side.
I can show you how the stretcher works here. It's a single-person no-lift stretcher,
and what this does is it allows us to safely transition the patient out of the helicopter
and into the receiving hospital.
They might be hooked up to a ventilator, monitoring equipment,
blood tubing, multiple infusions, and that's all secured nicely on the bridge here.
So, really, an improvement in the safety that we're offering to the patients.
We have an iStat machine here, which is a blood gas analyzer.
So when you go to the lab and get your blood drawn,
we're able to actually do that right in the back of the helicopter and have the results in two minutes.
We also have a C-mac video laryngoscope, so when we're placing a breathing tube in someone
and about to put them on the ventilator, we'll use this so that we can actually
see right down to the vocal cords.
We've got high technology IV infusion pumps,
as well as an onboard ultrasound machine. We carry two units of O-negative blood,
so it's really an advancement in the ability of us to care for these critical patients.
As you can see, it's a no-lift system. My partner would be in the helicopter monitoring
to ensure that everything's going well during this transition into the helicopter.
We really want to thank you for watching this
virtual tour of the helicopter. We couldn't do this without our allies in the community and
all of the support that's provided. We're really excited about being able to offer
critical care to our patients for generations to come. So, once again, thank you so much.