GENERAL AVIATION TO THE RESCUE Continued from page 19 PHOENIX AIR GROUP – CARTERSVILLE, GEORGIA At the Cartersville, Georgia headquarters of Phoenix Air Group at Cartersville-Bartow County Airport (KVPC), responding to critical emergencies and disaster zones around the world has become such a specialty that the com- pany is currently modifying five Gulfstream G-III jets with cargo doors, bringing the fleet of these specialized aircraft from three to eight to be better prepared for worst-case sce- narios like the 2017 hurricane season. “We currently own and operate the only three commercial Gulfstream jets in the world with cargo doors, and at one point we had all three of them operating in and around the Caribbean after the three hurricanes in a row hit in 2017,” said Phoenix Air Vice President Dent Thompson. Phoenix Air was working with the U.S. government out of San Juan, Puerto Rico after Harvey and Irma hit, forward- deploying State Department and U.S. Customs staff and help- ing to identify, prioritize and transport critical patients during the storms. Then, after Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, it relocated its base of operations to South Florida. The cargo door aircraft in the Phoenix Air fleet can accommodate unique air ambulance transport require- ments, including multiple patient movements with up to five stretchers at a time, patients requiring extensive support equipment, and even transport of patients with a highly infectious disease. In 2014, Aviation Business Journal reported on Phoenix Air’s use of its Airborne Biological Containment System (ABCS) during the Ebola crisis in Western Africa, a partnership with the U.S. government and the World Health Organization that marked a major turning point in Phoenix Air Group’s business relationship with the U.S. government. “These planes were manufactured with factory cargo doors by Gulfstream and sold to foreign governments’ mili- taries; and then, we bought them from these foreign govern- ments because those cargo doors are critical for carrying pallets of relief supplies and also for transporting patients with spinal and head injuries,” Thompson explained. “If a patient is on a backboard and needs to be put in the aircraft flat, for example, then they can’t go through a passenger 20 door. These aircraft are perfect for dealing with disaster scenarios: they fly very long distances; they’re rugged; and with the cargo door we can carry passengers, do medevac or carry cargo. They’re very versatile, and one of the biggest lessons learned, after our experience during the hurricane season in 2017, is that we need more of these cargo door jets. Since they aren’t available from the manufacturer, we’re now custom-building modified cargo door aircraft, which are specialized for our medevac missions.” Thompson says Phoenix Air has invested $4 million in the Supplemental Type Certification (STC) process for the first of the modified jets over the last year and will begin testing the aircraft in October before going on to modify the other four jets. Another lesson they’ve learned from the 2017 hurricane season: “We’ve since upgraded our entire satellite commu- nications package on each of these aircraft, because we’ve learned that, while you can usually get a good signal while flying at altitude, the reality on the ground during some of these kinds of events can require better communications systems,” Thompson clarified. “Normal sat phones and com- munication systems are good, but there is an unacceptable amount of dead areas. We don’t need to be in a bad area and have our communications be sporadic! So, now we’ve gone with fully articulated antennae on each of these aircraft. They’re just much more robust. Now, we don’t really have any dead areas; we’ve gone with the best on the market, knowing that we’re increasingly going to be working in these austere locations and environments.” In 2017, while celebrating more than 25 years of providing international air ambulance and aviation services, Phoenix Air also invested in attaining a Medical Transport Accreditation from the National Accreditation Alliance Medical Transport Applications (NAAMTA), complementing its pre-existing accreditation from the Commission on Accreditation of Medical Transport Systems (CAMTS). The dual accreditation reflects the highest level of service and the most extensive compliance with medical protocols in the industry. “We felt that the dual accreditation was good for our reputation and business, not accepting a single accreditation standard, but rising to both and operating at the very highest levels to meet those standards and keep those standards,” Aviation Business Journal | 3rd Quarter 2018
