AIR AMBULANCE

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 35, 4 November 1933, Page 6

AIR AMBULANCE

Wellington Aero Club’s Purchase DUE AT END OF MONTH New Zealand’s first aerial ambulance has been bought by the Wellington Aero Club, and will, it is hoped, be in operation early next month. The new machine win replace the Waco cabin biplane, which has proved such a popular unit in the chib’s ileet since it was brought to the Dominion about IS months ago, and which has now been sold to the Otago Aero Club. The ambulance machine is the latest production of the Waco Aircraft Company, and is a development of the model at present in use by the club. When not in use as an ambulance, it is a four-seater passenger carrier, the internal arrangements being similar to those of the -present machine, but a stretcher is carried in the rear of the. fuselage. This, however, cannot be seen when passengers are being carried. ~ . .. There is a door in the side or the fuselage, behind the cabin, by which the stretcher can be taken in or out, and when a patient is being carried tlie stretcher, which is constructed of mgtal tubing and wire, is suspended from the roof above the two starboard seats, thus reducing vibration to a minimum. A doctor, nurse, or attendant can then sit alongside the patient. Fastest Civil Aircraft. The new machine will be 20 miles an hour faster than the present Waco and will be easily the speediest civil aircraft in New Zealand. The power unit will be a. Continental radial engine similar to that in the present machine, but will have 11 cylinders, and will develop 210 li.p. instead of 160 li p. The top speed will be 140 miles an hour, as against 118, and the cruising speed, 125 m.p.h. instead of 105. The lauding speed is substantially the same, the 49 miles an hour of the ambulance being only oue m.p.h. greater than that of the present model. The aeroplane was hoisted aboard the Bort Dunedin 10 days after the manufacturers bad received the cabled order, and it will be landed in Wellington about November 29, and will lie assembled at Rongotai by FlightLieutenant G. B. Bolt, the club’s pilot engineer. The biplane now in use, which was assembled at Wigram aerodrome. will be delivered in Dunedin during the next week. Scope for Ambulance Work. Scores of lives have been saved by the use of air transport in other countries, where the sick and injured have been flown to centres where facilities for the treatment of unusual cases lijid been available, and iu New Zealand urgent cases have been brought from towns to cities where more suitable treatment could be obtained. The provision of an aerial ambulance service is a subject which the Wellington Aero Club’s committee has considered for some time, but until the Otago Aero Club made an offer for the Waco, the financial burden involved was the big difficulty. As was the case when the present Waco was purchased, the English manufacturers were unable to supply a suitable machine at a price within the club’s means. The Waco ambulance will be landed in New Zealand for about £2OOO, but the only English machine which would be suitable for use as an ambulance, the de Haviland Dragon Moth, was rather too largo for club purposes, and would cost about £4OOO to land. The chib considers itself particularly fortunate to have the new machine shipped bv the Port Dunedin, as this will enable it to have it flying before the holiday season, when it is hoped to do a great deal of flying between Wellington and the new landing ground on Mr. G. L. Rogers’s property at Slanaroa, Dolorous Sound.