A Little Diversion

[RayintheUK]

The Kent County Air Ambulance landed around 300 yards from my house today. Caused quite a stir, as you might imagine. Great piece of flying to get as close as possible to the casualty. Here's the subsequent take-off (a larger pic can be found here) :



Ray

[cabinetman]

I bet that broke up the monotony of the day for sure. A few years ago there was an accident on the next street about 2 A.M. Between all the rescue lights and the chopper noise, it woke us up, got our dogs barking, and it was like aliens had landed.

BTW...nice pic.
.

[RayintheUK]

I bet that broke up the monotony of the day for sure.

It certainly did!

The helicopter was one with a directional fan at the tail instead of a rotor. The pilot told me that it was preferable for the circumstances he flew in, as he was only in danger of blowing a spectator or two off their feet, rather than cutting bits off them!

Thanks for the kind comment about the picture - anyone can use it, or the larger one at the link above if you'd like to.

Ray.

[Richard in Smithville]

The Welland hospital is just across the canal from where I work. I often see the helo's coming and going from their pad. Not something you want to see( knowing the cargo).

BTW: Nice picture Ray.

[Ed62]

Nice shot, Ray. When something like that happens, it will get your attention for sure.

Ed

[ironhat]

I loved the waving hand inside the cockpit seen in the blow-up. Just yesterday, I believe, we had two of these collide in mid-air in close proximity to a hospital. I won't expound because I don't accurately recall the exact details but, of course, there was loss of live. I was surprised that there were survivors. As always, nice job on the photos, Ray. Would you like to post your camera stats?

[RAFlorida]

Great pic Ray. That's one beauty of a machine.

I may be the first to say that I had the fortune or unfortune to ride one of those a few years back. Flew from one hospital to another about 40 miles away. The ol' ticker was on it's way out and they didn't want to waste time in traffic! Thanks for the pic, it looks like a very do-able craft.

[RayintheUK]

Would you like to post your camera stats?

I use a Pentax K10D, Chiz. Here's the data for you:

DA18-55mm lens at 35mm focal length
Shutter speed 1/350sec. at F8
Aperture Priority mode and Multi-Segmented metering
100 ISO, Single AF, Spot area.

HTH

Ray.

[Tom Slick]

Neat picture.

That type of helo is called a NOTAR: NO TAil Rotor
great technology for that application.

[Mrs. Wallnut]

Years ago I worked at a local store called Bi-Mart with a fairly large parking lot about two blocks away from the local hospital. There were a couple of times that our parking lot was used to land the big military helicopters that are used for the medical transportations. Always made a big stir when that happened. You really got to see how big they actually are.

Now our hospital has them landing on the roof of the building and sometimes it is neat to see a hospital medic chopper sitting up there, the military ones are too big to land on the top of the building so they either land in a parking lot close or the local airport/landing strip here.

Great picture...Loved it