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Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#31

Post by pen2l »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #25
AndrewLiptak wrote: post #10

I've seen Richard Browning fly this in person — he did a demo a couple of years ago at San Diego Comic-Con. It's unreal to watch, but it's definitely something I can see not being all that widespread: it takes a lot of training to acclimate to it. Browning's been doing a bunch of demos lately: it feels like they're trying to figure out the best use, whether that's military applications, rescue, or others. This isn't…

> I've seen Richard Browning fly this in person — he did a demo > Browning's been doing a bunch of demos lately How many other people have been trained to fly this thing? It's telling if it's no-one, that would mean that it's likely prohibitive to insure the danger.

Yeah interesting you bring that up. I remember being introduced to this Browning by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAJM5L9hhBs

And you notice something interesting in the beginning... this guy is in GOOD shape. Like not just good, we're talking REALLY good, he's in the 0.1percentile, being able to do some pretty difficult callisthenic moves (go to 1:00 in the video to see him doing handstand pushups and flags, these can take years to learn for the common person). And I think it's one of the reasons he made the suit work... because I can't imagine someone NOT being that fit arriving to a working design, given the iterations it required to get everything right in the beginning.

However, I think we can now arrive to a design for the common man thanks to him having iterated through these first versions.

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#32

Post by zizee »

wil421 wrote: post #28
Retric wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Helicopters can reach people in this location just fine in a reasonable time, and more importantly bring people back. Limiting your comparison to a 400,000+$ experimental jet suit vs walking is deceptive. If cost that much of an issue, a paraglider costs 1/10th as much and are likely much safer to operate. Or if getting a single person on site is all you need, tiny helicopters cost as low as 50k new.

A medivac out of the Grand Canyon can cost $15k. If you could use a $400k jet pack to stabilize someone until a ground crew gets there it could be a win for everyone.

How much would it cost to helecopter a medic in to stabilize someone until a ground crew gets there?

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#33

Post by MaxBarraclough »

inglor_cz wrote: post #27
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I suspect people probably said the same thing the first time they saw a helicopter! Odds are that they would have been right - early helicopters probably weren't safe enough to use as ambulances. Well-run modern air ambulances are very safe edit: perhaps not, see replies (twin-engine helicopters with very experienced pilots) and can serve hundreds of patients per year, generally only serving very urgent cases of co…

A friend of mine has been an emergency doctor since 1990. A helicopter crashed with him on board once, killing the patient and causing him injuries that still can be seen after twenty years. His comment: "We are ready to take risks. That is part of our work, just like cops' or soldiers'. Some missions are extra risky - industrial accidents or anything involved drugged or drunk people. We still take that risk." IDK wh…

Looks like you're right, nowhere near as safe as I'd imagined. [0][1]

I'm not sure if those figures are true globally or just for the US.

[0] https://www.flyingmag.com/aircraft/helicopters/air-ambulance...

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB123370317612745375

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#34

Post by NoOneNew »

So... how is this better than a rescue helicopter with a basket (like the US Coast Guard)? Helicopter in an EMT to go down with the basket, stabilize the victim, place victim in the basket, retract, fly away (yes, I know, there's more to it). With this setup up, fly in with super limited resources and stabilize the victim to wait for a helicopter for exfil? Super rapid response, maybe, but search/rescue is also pretty limited in manpower, not just equipment... and limited on money. Unless you have extra staging locations peppered throughout, all these jetpackers are probably going to be based with the rescue birds anyways, which defeats the purpose. Plus, imagine the cost for the extra training, keeping up with certs, quals, maintenance, and oh dear God... the insurance costs... for a severely neutered helicopter. Probably best to spend the cash on an extra bird to fan out coverage.

I'm smelling solutionism... It's kind of like that boat "take over" gimmick without a weapon in hand. The enemy force will literally just yell out how many points they're racking up when shooting at a bunch of guys in jetpacks with their hands occupied in not-weaponry. Afterwards, they'll agree not to kill hostages as long as more jetpack guys are sent in for target practice. That whole PR stunt was a complete joke.

Damn, when I was a kid, jetpacks were the coolest idea ever. As they become more of a reality, they're so useless other than for fun.

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#35

Post by justinclift »

Retric wrote: post #21
Neil44 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scrambling to reach someone over difficult terrain also carries risk to life. As does being unable to reach patients for 90 minutes whatever the emergency.

Helicopters can reach people in this location just fine in a reasonable time, and more importantly bring people back. Limiting your comparison to a 400,000+$ experimental jet suit vs walking is deceptive. If cost that much of an issue, a paraglider costs 1/10th as much and are likely much safer to operate. Or if getting a single person on site is all you need, tiny helicopters cost as low as 50k new.

There are plenty of cases here in Australia, including recently, where people have fallen off a cliff and can't be reached by rescuers for hours or perhaps until the next day.

When that happens, it seems to be because the location (bottom of cliff) has extensive bush covering around it.

That being said, I know nothing at all about any of the above cases. There may have been bad weather involved too, which would probably also be a problem for a jet pack solution.

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#36

Post by dogma1138 »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #11
unwind wrote: post #7

Like other commenters, I agree that this is roughly equal parts awesome (because flying suits are awesome, and also because rapid response from medical professionals in the field is too), equal parts silly/gimmicky/unlikely. Also, why is the BBC feeling a need to put quotes around "fly" in the article? If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet…

> If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet engines, isn't that pretty exactly flying? It depends, are they reaching a height where the Wing-in-ground effect is negligible? If they have to stay below that, then no, not really flying. Unless you'd say that a hovercraft or ekranoplan also flies. Or they could just be staying low because it might…

A hovercraft doesn’t fly not because the wing in ground effect but because it doesn’t have 6 degrees of freedom which constitutes flying.

A sub or a torpedo can fly through the water just like an airplane or a missile do through air.

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#37

Post by treetoppin »

Pretty cool usage scenario, since everyone can imagine a flying hero coming in to save the day. That being said, this feels like a solution looking for a problem. I am sure there are specific areas of responsibility that would benefit from a rapidly deployable single medic carrying a small triage kit with no patient return capability, but they are probably few and far between (especially when you factor in the above need with the capability to purchase, train crew, and maintain such a capability).

As a pilot of a helicopter whose purpose is search and rescue, this system seems a bit cumbersome. Yes, a helicopter can't land in all terrain types, but it is a pretty well established skill set to have medics lowered to survivors, and to have the capability to hoist and then transport survivors to higher level care. Maintaining this capability is expensive, which is why it is usually limited to public safety organizations, though some operators like Air Zermatt are private. While a jetpack medic might be able to compete with a subset up the capabilities of a hoist capable medevac helicopter, it won't have the range, speed, or full spectrum of services. If you end up needing a helicopter to evacuate the person anyways, you probably didn't gain a whole lot by having a jetpack medic fly out there first. Unless the jetpack bases are highly concentrated and very common in an area, they probably won't have a time advantage when it comes to onscene arrival either.

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#38

Post by dogma1138 »

unwind wrote: post #7

Like other commenters, I agree that this is roughly equal parts awesome (because flying suits are awesome, and also because rapid response from medical professionals in the field is too), equal parts silly/gimmicky/unlikely. Also, why is the BBC feeling a need to put quotes around "fly" in the article? If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet…

Because it was a direct quote from the source, this is the BBC not your friend Becky with her air quotes.

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#39

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

dogma1138 wrote: post #36
SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet engines, isn't that pretty exactly flying? It depends, are they reaching a height where the Wing-in-ground effect is negligible? If they have to stay below that, then no, not really flying. Unless you'd say that a hovercraft or ekranoplan also flies. Or they could just be staying low because it might…

A hovercraft doesn’t fly not because the wing in ground effect but because it doesn’t have 6 degrees of freedom which constitutes flying. A sub or a torpedo can fly through the water just like an airplane or a missile do through air.

Does an ekranoplan "fly" then ?

Re: Great North Air Ambulance trials paramedic jet suit

#40

Post by chrisseaton »

unwind wrote: post #7

Like other commenters, I agree that this is roughly equal parts awesome (because flying suits are awesome, and also because rapid response from medical professionals in the field is too), equal parts silly/gimmicky/unlikely. Also, why is the BBC feeling a need to put quotes around "fly" in the article? If a person is, like, lifting off from the ground, and moving through the air in a controlled fashion driven by jet…

> Also, why is the BBC feeling a need to put quotes around "fly" in the article?

The BBC is fastidious about quoting. It's a good thing. They don't report that 'man killed by a speeding car' - instead they report 'man "killed by a speeding car"' because they're quoting their source that told them what happened, not telling you what happened themselves because they weren't there and don't know that.

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