Our new EC155 helicopters

August 2012
University of Michigan
Health System
Survival Flight
Our new EC155 helicopters
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American Eurocopter 155 B1
2012 and beyond
Bell 430
1998 - 2012
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EC155
46.9ft
Bell 430
42.0 ft
11.3 ft
6.9 ft
13.1 ft
1.2 ft
44.1 ft
8.3 ft
50.1 ft
 The front view (right) shows the EC155’s much larger cabin, while the
profile view reveals the safer, enclosed tail rotor. Note the additional
windows in the EC155 cockpit.
 The Bell 430 has landing skids, while the EC155 has retractable wheels.
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EC155
Fenestron tail rotor
High ground clearance
High efficiency
Low vulnerability
Low noise and vibration levels
Safer ground operations
Bell 430
Exposed seesaw tail rotor
Lower ground clearance
Higher risk of damage
Noisier
Increased danger to ground
personnel
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A side-by-side comparison of the EC155 and Bell 430
 Weight:
 Maximum take-off weight (pounds)
 Basic aircraft empty weight (pounds)
EC155 B430
10,846 9,300
5,772 5,731
Capacity:
 Cabin volume (cubic feet)
 Maximum crew (pilots + nurses)
 Maximum patients
235
6
2
158
4
1
143
164
427
491
-40
122
0.5
139
160
353
406
-40
126
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 Performance
 Max cruise speed (knots)
(MPH)
 Max range (nautical miles)
(miles)
 Min operating limit (degrees F)
 Max operating limit (degrees F)
 Warm-up time (minutes)
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Maximum range with crew and 300-pound patient.
Bell 430
EC155
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EC155 Technology and Materials
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More shots of
our new
aircraft…
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EC155 Cockpit
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Survival Flight program facts and statistics
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 Survival Flight was founded in 1983. It was the first medical flight
service in Michigan.
 In the past 29 years, four different types of helicopters have been
used:
 Eurocopter AS355 Twinstar (1983-1993)
 Bell 230 (1993-1998)
 Bell 430 (1998-2012)
 Eurocopter 155 B1 (2012 and beyond)
 Along with the three helicopters, Survival Flight also has a fixedwing plane, a Citation Encore, which can pick up donated organs
or patients anywhere in the country.
 The plane was used to bring patients from Haiti to the U.S. for
advanced specialized care after the 2010 earthquake.
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 The Survival Flight team includes:
 21 flight nurses
 11 helicopter pilots and 8 fixed-wing pilots
 6 mechanics for both types of aircraft
 10 communications specialists, who monitor five radios, eight
telephone lines and track flights by satellite GPS
 Additional support staff, administrators and medical faculty
 Since its founding, Survival Flight has flown about 4.5 million miles.
That’s like flying to the moon 19 times.
 In a typical year, Survival Flight makes between 1,000 and 1,500
trips, transporting 800 to 1,000 patients and bringing numerous
hearts, lungs, livers, kidneys and other organs to waiting
recipients.
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Proud to represent U-M…
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But don’t take our word for it…
Robert Doyen’s left arm tells a story. It’s a story of pain, progress and gratitude.
Doyen proudly displays a tattoo depicting a Survival
Flight Bell 430 helicopter and below it the words
“Thank you all” below it. He says the image represents
his appreciation to the U-M Health System after he spent
six weeks there recovering from a spinal cord injury.
“Survival Flight is a big part of why I’m still here today,”
he says. “When I was in the hospital, I couldn’t believe
how much everyone cared about my recovery. I wanted
to say thank you to U-M somehow, so when I was still
in the hospital, I decided to get a tattoo of the helicopter.”
One Saturday in June 2011, Doyen woke up with the same pain in his shoulder that had troubled
him for weeks. On this morning, the pain was worse than it had been, and he decided to go to the
local emergency room in Bay City, Mich. He underwent an MRI, and when coming out from the
machine, his arms erupted in pain.
“They felt like they were on fire,” he recalls. That’s the last thing he remembers until he woke up
in the intensive care unit at U-M’s University Hospital two days later.
In between, Doyen had been flown to U-M. His C5 and C6 vertebrae had collapsed, pinching his
spinal cord, and forcing him to undergo a cervical fusion surgery. He woke up Monday unable to
walk, and facing a month and a half of rehabilitation.
“When they first put me in the wheelchair, I thought my life was over,” he says. But he wouldn’t
need the wheelchair for long. After six week of rehabilitation, he left the hospital under his own
power. Although his recovery isn’t over, Doyen says his new tattoo is a continual reminder of his
appreciation for U-M.
“I could have gotten a block M tattoo, but I didn’t want people to think I was just a Michigan sports
fan,” he says. “The Survival Flight tattoo shows how thankful I am to the hospital, and what
everyone there did for me.”
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Learn more:
• Survival Flight homepage www.survivalflight.com
• Survival Flight Facebook page –
www.facebook.com/UMSurvivalFlight
• Pentastar Aviation’s medical transport page
• American Eurocopter’s EC155 page
• UMHS Colleagues in Care newsletter article
• Medicine at Michigan magazine article (2010)
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