A day in the life of a Medevac pilot

Yes, that is a nice video. I used to do that exact thing for several years, in Commanders. I'm glad that he showed that most of the time, you are doing nothing-- not a great job for building time!

Night shifts were both the best and the worst-- the best if you didn't fly, since you could sit around watching Netflix and then go to sleep, and the worst if you did, especially after midnight, and doubly if you do two or more trips in one night (the most I ever did was 3 in one night, and let me tell you, that sucked!).

On day shifts, in complete contrast to night shifts, you really wanted to fly and good days were doing a couple of trips.

When I did it, we had two pilots, which was probably unnecessary during the day, and made it much, much better late at night. And you had someone to talk to while waiting for the med crew to come back. My old operation went to single pilot about the time I stopped doing it. Now they are all single pilot, single engine-- PC-12.

If you have any questions about Commanders, fire away-- I've flown most of the more modern models.

 

Do I correctly recall that in the very early days the Commander developed a sort of a bad rep for a rapid (violent) flip if an engine failed on take-off? I seem to recall a big deal when I lived at South Lake Tahoe back in the '70's when a 'celebrity' of some sort (sports figure? business owner? other?) died after an engine failure on take-off; news reports went with the ".... plane claimed another victim....of the well-known take-off problem..." Anything to that; or rather just a piloting issue?

 

No, Commanders are very docile with an engine out. You are probably thinking of the Mitsubishi MU-2, which is also a high wing turboprop. I have only flown an MU-2 once, but from what I understand, they require different procedures than most other aircraft, and if flown by the book, do fine. However, if flown like, say, a Commander or a King Air, bad things happen.

The FAA has required special training for the MU-2, and ever since that went into effect, I believe their safety record is pretty good.

 

Thanks. I think you are exactly right; thinking back, it was an MU-2.