EC145 helicopters are providing vital medical airlift services for the U.S. Army through support missions performed by Vanderbilt LifeFlight at Fort Campbell, Ky.

Vanderbilt LifeFlight is the critical-care medical evacuation service of the Vanderbilt University Medical Center covering middle Tennessee, southern Kentucky and northern Alabama. It operates from four locations in Tennessee, using a rotary-wing fleet of three EC145s--and two BK-117s, predecessors to the EC145.

The Army has contracted with Vanderbilt LifeFlight for on-call medical airlift support for the 101st Airborne and other military personnel at the Fort Campbell facility near Clarksville, Ky. Vanderbilt LifeFlight's EC145s provide air medical transportation with a rapid response time, using its LifeFlight 3 base of operations at Gateway Medical Center in Clarksville.

EADS North America is offering a military version of the EC145--designated as the UH-145--to meet the mission requirements of the U.S. Army's new Light Utility Helicopter (LUH). The UH-145 is well-suited to the Army's LUH commercially based acquisition strategy, combining mission flexibility with a large, unobstructed main cabin and a state-of-the-art cockpit.

The EC145/BK117 fleet makes approximately 3000 flights per year, with many of these airlifting patients to Vanderbilt University Medical Center--the only level 1 trauma center within a 68,000-square-mile area.

The EC145 is used worldwide for emergency medical transportation, law enforcement, and search and rescue. The helicopter's unobstructed main cabin is easily re-configurable and the helicopter's sliding side and rear clamshell doors optimize access and effective space use. Seating capacity is for up to nine passengers, and two stretchers can be installed for medevac missions. The UH-145 version offers a commercially based solution for the U.S. Army's Light Utility Helicopter mission.

RSS    Save to Del.icio.us  Digg This