Date: 21 Nov 2003
Time: 13:20
Arkansas Children's Hospital has marked its first twelve months of operations with new Sikorsky S-76 C+ helicopters, during which time the aircraft have performed hundreds of lifesaving missions throughout the south east United States.
Two Sikorsky S-76C+ Emergency Medical Service helicopters are helping Arkansas Children's Hospital provide transportation services to critically ill and injured infants and children from all areas of Arkansas and surrounding states.
Arkansas Children's Hospital took delivery of the two S-76C+ aircraft in 2002. They replaced two older S-76A models and a BO 105 EMS helicopter. The hospital has met a growing demand for their expanded services and the S-76C+ has helped it to perform more missions during hot weather and instrument meteorological conditions (IMC).
The latest S-76 variant's greater power allows for more mission range and payload, allowing the Angel One flight programme to perform more missions in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Tennessee. To date, the aircraft have logged more than 1,900 flight hours.
The S-76C+ aircraft interior is configured as a flying intensive-care unit equipped to carry two patients, a four-person medical team, neonatal transport isolettes as well as an extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) pump, which serves as a heart/lung bypass for critically ill patients. Angel Flight, the hospital's critical care transport programme, completed 1,783 patient transports in fiscal year 2002.
The aircraft are equipped with sophisticated accident avoidance systems. In addition to a glass cockpit and DDAFCS autopilot, Arkansas Children's Hospital was the first customer to receive an S-76C+ Air Medical aircraft equipped with the Honeywell Mark XXII Enhanced Ground Proximity Warning System, providing real-time situational awareness of surrounding terrain and obstacles, to avoid controlled flight into terrain (CFIT).
Other showcased features include the Garmin GPS 500 system with moving map display, SatelliteSkywatch traffic collision avoidance system and a satellite communications system.