Our visit to the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance base

On the 9th October, a group of members were fortunate to be invited to pay a visit to the Essex & Herts Air Ambulance base at Earls Colne, where they were taken on a guided tour of the base and had explained to them the operations of the base.

President Ian Reading presented our club's donation of £4,000, which was raised from our charity golf tournament held on 16th August at The Rayleigh Club.

Whilst there, they witnessed a real "shout" and watched the crew, medics and pilots, board and start the helicopter.  It took only 3 minutes for all systems to be checked before take-off.

It was explained how all the local air ambulances support each other, how the system is financed and who pays what for the crew and the medical staff.  Also, how a “shout” works and that not all callouts result in the helicopter being used to fly patients to hospital.  The helicopter gets help to the site of whatever quickly which is important but not all cases are that urgent that they need a ride to the nearest appropriate hospital.  The helicopter cannot fly at night unless there is an illuminated landing pad available, in which case land vehicles are used if deemed necessary.  The roles of the support team, i.e. those who do not fly but do all the background work was explained.

It costs £1,000,000 a month to run the Essex and Herts Air ambulance.  One of the major costs is the replacement of the helicopter's rotor blades. The helicopter has 5 main rotor blades which have a life of about 500 flying hours and cost £150,000 each, so to change the five main blades, including labour and new hardware such as bolts, bearings etc  costs £1,000,000.