Emergency first response could promote urban air mobility
Experts speaking at a National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) webinar have said that emergency medical service (EMS) providers could benefit as early adopters of eVTOL aircraft
According to Yolanka Wulff, Co-Executive Director of the Community Air Mobility Initiative, EMS missions using eVTOLs will generally not need as much new infrastructure as applications such as air taxi services. She thinks that new airspace infrastructure is more of a challenge overall than ground infrastructure, and she urged the industry to try to enlist the support of state and local officials in pushing for progress on this front.
Wulff said building support for EMS applications with public officials will be helped by the fact that they have the potential to aid the wider community. “It has a clear public benefit,” she stated. “Everybody understands when a medevac helicopter flies overhead that there is a public benefit.” So, while she believes more complex eVTOL applications could take another 10 or more years to get established, EMS could ‘come much more quickly’.
According to Jump Aero Co-Founder and Business Development Lead Katerina Barilov, there are around 3.4 million time-critical emergencies in the US and survival rates directly correlate to the time it takes for patients to receive first aid. “The average response time is eight minutes and eVTOLs could halve this and so would have a very quick impact [on the effectiveness of EMS operations],” she said.