Pilatus PC-24 dirt strip

[fast89pony]

 

[alaskadrifter]

I wonder if this will replace a few king airs or Lears in medivac fleets.

 

[gotWXdagain]

I wonder if this will replace a few king airs or Lears in medivac fleets.

Likely neither, but if I had to guess it’d be Lears.

 

[killbilly]

This beauty was on the ramp this morning as I walked out to work with a student. Gotta admit - it's a pretty graceful-looking airplane. Nice lines. @milleR - this may be your next upgrade, my friend.

 

[Roger Roger]

Likely neither, but if I had to guess it’d be Lears.

North Slope Borough up in the Village Formerly Known As Barrow has one getting outfitted for Medevac right now to replace their Lear 31.

Thing is, the 24 is close to $11 mil now and decent used Lear 45s are like $5 mil. Sure you don’t get the latest greatest avionics or a cargo door, but you get ~20 knots more speed and TRs.

I also haven’t heard what a medical 24 weighs, the numbers published for the exec version make it look like once you put a lifeport or similar in you won’t be able to fill the tanks even with just one patient and 2 med crew. The 45 supposedly can.

I’d still sell a kidney to get us one to replace our Lear 31s tho.

 

[JeppUpdater]

I wonder if this will replace a few king airs or Lears in medivac fleets.

That’s actually the whole point of this - the Royal Flying Doctor Service operates a few to the Australian Outback with more on order. Flying Doctor aircraft fleet | Royal Flying Doctor Service
Whether we’ll ever see more other than maybe a one-off for them remains to be seen.

It’s a niche airplane for sure - it burns more fuel than the CJ4 to go slower than the Phenom 300, so you really need to have a particular need for it to go for it over either, especially considering the CJ4 is considerably cheaper and the 300 has built up quite a reputation for comfort/reliability/manufacturer support.

 

[z987k]

So what are the takeoff and landing distances on dirt, gravel, ice/snow over one of the former? The airport they landed at in the video should be called dirt strip international airport for how big it is.

 

[ppragman]

So what are the takeoff and landing distances on dirt, gravel, ice/snow over one of the former? The airport they landed at in the video should be called dirt strip international airport for how big it is.

• impressive. We want one. We could make money with one.

 

[z987k]

• impressive. We want one. We could make money with one.

Do you have numbers to show that? Cause I'm not impressed by a jet landing on an 8000ft dirt strip. A 737 can do that.

 

[Roger Roger]

• impressive. We want one. We could make money with one.

Ok, if you guys pull off getting one I’ll finally consider moving to Los Anchorage.

 

[NickH]

It's definitely a niche airplane. It's perfect for the RFDS, where providing the highest quality of service is the goal, but it's got to be a hard sell in the US. Medevac here is dominated by worn out corporate aircraft for good reason. To justify the cost of a new airplane, and the ongoing cost of placing it into service in the high impact environment that is the medevac world, it has to be considerably more capable than anything else on the market...