Germany Orders Electric Air Taxis To Carry Emergency Doctors (bloomberg.com) 50
Germany's biggest air-ambulance operator has ordered two electric air taxis to evaluate their potential in a pioneering role speeding doctors to patients. From a report: ADAC Luftrettung, part of the country's leading motoring association, will begin testing the 18-rotor Volocopter GmbH aircraft from 2023 after the simulation of 26,000 emergency responses in two cities indicated that it could fulfill a rapid-transport role currently performed by a costlier helicopter fleet. The joint announcement Tuesday provides further evidence of the commercial potential of vertical takeoff air taxis, coming less than a week after Singapore said it plans to launch the world's first such service. Germany may need more than 250 bases for the craft, according to ADAC, which plans to operate them alongside its choppers. Though the VoloCity model has no room for a third person in its cabin with the pilot and medic, only 25% of helicopter missions today require a casualty to be evacuated by air, it said.
That will raise the price! (Score:1)
I read that as I would have to have a doctor on board in order to ride the taxi!
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I think The Doctor was out of order.
We've been doing it wrong in the US all this time! (Score:1)
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We've been bringing the patients to the doctors. It's bass-ackwards!
Well... if it is dangerous to move a patient and a specialist is at another hospital, it makes sense. This particular vehicle has a super short range and isn't very fast. I'm assuming they think there is a limited use case where it would be a better option than a helicopter.
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In other words, if the mountain-sized patient will not come to Dr. Muhammad, then Dr. Muhammad must go to the mountain-sized patient.
If it's just a big patient then the Dr could drive like anybody else. In this case I'm assuming it's for emergency procedures.
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Heart attacks and strokes come to mind, or a complicated bone fracture, where the first incoming doctor is the most important while a classic road based ambulance is trailing behind to pick up the patient.
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This doesn't make much sense. A doctor is pretty useless for serious injury or illness without a hospital. EMTs are trained and equipped to stabilize patients for transport to the hospital.
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That's in the Anglo-American system, where the focus is very much on stabilize the patient, and get them to hospital for treatment. A lot of European countries do more at-the-scene treatment by emergency doctors, especially for series cases. Sometimes the doctors ride with the ambulances, but they also have separate vehicles (typically cars, motorbikes or SUVs) to get the emergency doctor on site (perhaps before the ambulance). You can read more about these Nontransporting EMS vehicles [wikipedia.org] on Wikipedia.
However,
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In the US, emergency response is done by bringing an EMT to the patient instead of a doctor, but the general principle is the same: get to the scene of the accident ASAP and start treatment on the scene, instead of just shoving the patient into a transport and getting him to a hospital to start treatment there.
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I think the concepts are a bit different. From here [wikipedia.org]:
Transport-only
The most basic emergency medical services are provided as a transport operation only, simply to take patients from their location to the nearest medical treatment. This was historically the case in all countries. It remains the case in much of the developing world, where operators as diverse as taxi drivers and undertakers may transport people to hospital.
Transport-centered EMS
The Anglo-American model is also known as "load and go" or "scoop and run". In this model, ambulances are staffed by paramedics and/or emergency medical technicians. They have specialized medical training, but not to the same level as a physician. In this model it is rare to find a physician actually working routinely in ambulances, although they may be deployed to major or complex cases. The physicians who work in EMS provide oversight for the work of the ambulance crews. This may include off-line medical control, where they devise protocols or 'standing orders' (procedures for treatment). This may also include on-line medical control, in which the physician is contacted to provide advice and authorization for various medical interventions.
Physician-led EMS
Physician-led EMS is also known as the Franco-German model, "stay and play", "stay and stabilize" or "delay and treat". In a physician-led system, doctors respond directly to all major emergencies requiring more than simple first aid. The physicians will attempt to treat casualties at the scene and will only transport them to hospital if it is deemed necessary. If patients are transported to hospital, they are more likely to go straight to a ward rather than to an emergency department. Countries that use this model include Austria, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Chile.
Getting the doctor to the patient is a good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
if you have enough doctors to do it. It saves precious time from the "Golden Hour" -- the brief period after a major trauma after which the patient's chance of surviving drops off rapidly.
But it's weird to tie this to electric aircraft. You could put a fully supplied trauma team on a medium transport helicopter.
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I don't think there are many places in Germany that are more than 35 km away from a hospital.
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What's with doctors on bikes then? They're fast. Especially racing doctors like John Hinds here [youtube.com]. .. ok I guess getting there on a fast bike is dangerous too.
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There are medical helicopters with doctors already both in Germany and many other places.
But they are often limited in the places they can go(a helicopter needs certain amount of space to land) and cost quite a lot to run, both in actual helicopter costs and the number of staff you need.
Things like this are likely able to land in smaller places and cost a lot less to run.
Normal ambulances cost a lot less to run, but are hindered by things like traffic.
If this can bring the cost of flight down, maybe even co
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If the purpose is to get a doctor to a patient in the field 35KM away, It might be quicker to train the doctor to drive a motorcycle with emergency lights installed. A motorcycle can navigate through traffic pretty quick and can likely get to the location in a similar amount of time without all the additional complexity and cost of some new type of flying machine.
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Yeah, but it might be hard to find a doctor doing that ... pretty pointless imho.
Does not help much if the doctor has an accident on the way, and what TV fans forget: speed limits are speed limits, traffic rules are traffic rules, even in an emergency.
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You could put a fully supplied trauma team on a medium transport helicopter.
1. The conventional helicopter is way more expensive, both to buy and to operate.
2. The conventional helicopter needs a pilot, so will be less responsive. The pilot doesn't sleep on board.
3. The conventional helicopter is much more restricted in where it can land. It needs far more space and clearance.
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Perhaps you could read the linked article?
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You could put a fully supplied trauma team on a medium transport helicopter.
You're confusing services. This isn't in place of a fully supplied trauma team that is dispatched when needed. This is to give another option of travel for the "Notarzt" (you ever notice a passenger car turn up in ambulance colours, but clearly not capable of transporting a victim? That's who we're talking about).
The small volocopter is a cost efficient way of getting this person there faster. It does not replace an ambulance or trauma helicopter.
Terrible title (Score:5, Insightful)
They have ordered 2 electric air taxes, for the purpose of evaluating them for the deployment of a medic to the scene of emergencies.
Germany, the country, has not ordered that all electric air taxies have to carry doctors.
Re: Terrible title (Score:2)
Wow. That's completely different than title suggests. Thanks for clearing that up. Your explanation makes a lot more sense.
They also mention the taxi can only carry one passenger but if the victim is stabilized, seems like the doctor could hitch a different ride.
Bravo Germany, hope the study into these vehicles offers insight into improving emergency services.
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The air taxis are "ordered" as in "bought".
Just like you order a toaster from Amazon.
And the goal is to evaluate if there are useful cases where they are more suited than a helicopter.
And why ShanghaiBill thinks they do not have a pilot is beyond me.
Double Terrible (Score:1)
Germany, the country, has not ordered that all electric air taxies have to carry doctors.
I had the same confusion, the thing I was thinking is the misunderstanding was compounded by it being Germany where you could imagine them ordering something like that!
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Actually the country has nothing to do with the thing at all. The experiment appears to be done by ADAC, a roadside service operator, and a car owner association.
18 rotors ?! (Score:2)
That's a lot of rotors. Is there a reason for that?
Single rotor helicopters are normally more stable and more efficient. Small drones are often multi-rotor because it is mechanically simpler and these small, lightweight rotors are easy to control, but what I understood is that it doesn't scale well.
Here, it looks like the solution is to add more rotors, but 18 is a lot, I can't believe it is simpler than a traditional helicopter design. Plus it is probably inefficient and noisy. You get great redundancy tho
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Single rotor helicopters are normally more stable and more efficient.
No they are not, how the funk would that be physically possible?
It is a sized up version of what ppl call "a drone".
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Single rotor helicopters are normally more stable and more efficient.
No they are not, how the funk would that be physically possible?
Helicopters are passively stable. They can even land safely without engine power through autorotation, which means the rotor provides lift with no engine power.
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Do you actually know how a helicopter works? e.g. the tail rotor?
A flying thing with more than 1 rotor is much more stable than a helicopter.
And a Helicopter needs constant trimming, nothing "auto stable" at all.
Try to read something about it :P
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Try to read something about it :P
Or I could have flown one with an instructor.
Read about autogyros:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Neither the drone type 8 copter nor your previously mentioned _helicopter_ is an autogyro.
Pfft ... unfortunately I did not fly one yet.
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The point is that helicopters are passively stable and can land without engine and control power by autorotating, which relies on the same aerodynamics that autogyros use. Drones which rely on multiple fixed rotors cannot because they lack both unpowered lift and stability.
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The point is that helicopters are passively stable and can land without engine and control power by autorotating,
That is not called "passively stable".
Passively stable means in an airplane, it flights straight without interaction on the controls.
And for a helicopter it means: it hovers on the place without touching the controls.
which relies on the same aerodynamics that autogyros use.
No it does not.
First question to answer: which direction is the airflow in an autocopter through the rotor? And wich directio
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I would imagine 18 rotors for multiple redundancy. Split among 6 lift points of 3 rotors each, you have a lot of leeway to take damage (or mechanical failure) and stay in the air. Lose all three rotors / one left point entirely? The other five can handle the job. Lose a rotor here or there, or even several of them, the two (or one!) remaining rotor at that lift point can take up the slack.
Same reason SpaceX uses a bunch of identical rocket engines on each ship - they can lose one or two, compensate in f
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My understanding with rockets is that more engines is actually less reliable, since one engine can explode and take the entire rocket with it. It was a big issue with the N1 Russian rocket, which had 30 engines. In fact, had it worked better, make there would have been a Russian flag on the moon.
It worked for SpaceX because they already had that very good and reliable Merlin engine, no need to redesign something else for more powerful rockets, just use more of the same. It also helps with landing, as they c
Gotta love ambiguity in English (Score:1)
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Why does it need an onboard pilot? (Score:2)
Design some for remote piloting then you can carry a patient
What did you say? (Score:2)
Fuck, now even the titles suck! (Score:2)
and not only TFA and TFS.