CuriousBystander wrote:Now there seems to be a great deal of medic bashing in this thread - it's pretty distressing to me as a flight paramedic. I am thankful that in my flight program here in Canada we enjoy a great relationship with our pilots. I would not want to work with many of the posters here though - we would just not get along. Wether you want to admit it or not, I need some input in how the aircraft is going to be flown. Period. Full stop.
Cabin pressure is the most important area where we need to have open dialogue. If I request a specific cabin and you can not provide it, then we have to talk about it, and I need to know about it before we depart.
I am not so interested personally in being in the "go/no go" loop because I trust my PIC/FO's. They have given me no reason not too. And I know they trust me to keep them in the loop re: infectious, psych, or other noteworthy patients. That's CRM - like it or not. And I know that if I did have an issue re: airmanship that my concerns would be heard and handled.
That's perfect! This guy has just described the relative "utopia" of what should be going on. You tell the pilots what conditions you require for your patient and your pilots tell you if the flight is going to happen. The only problem I have with your post is that you think we are medic bashing, which is way off base from what I've read of this thread.
People are only getting a little annoyed at some of the medics on this thread that are trying to be backseat drivers. They know some of the terminology sure, but they do not know the regulations, they do not know what the conditions have to be up to for a safe flight and they do not seem to think the pilots know how to fly safely any better than they do, because they could "just say no" to every mission they have any fuzzy concern about.
I've heard a lot of misguided concerns so far in this thread and they're the reason we don't want medics calling off flights that are there to help the people that need it.
Someone blamed a crash on the fact that a pilot tookoff in 300' ceilings. Well, the majority of MEDEVAC flights are flown IFR, which are the same regulations that every airline flies by. And that means you require 1/2 SM visibility for takeoff, and that's it. You could have a ceiling at five feet but if the visibility reaches half a mile (considerably less than that is required at an airport with runway centerline lighting) your airline flight will takeoff immediately. Every time. There is no safety hazard.
Then a crash was blamed on the fact that a Westwind Jet didn't take on full fuel, while concerns were raised about flying overweight... Well taking on full fuel will dramatically reduce an aircraft's payload but for some reason the flight medic in question was not concerned about full fuel putting the flight overweight.
And then ".. running" comes up in just about every other post. .. running is flying under the clouds.. which in other words is called flying VFR. Every single student pilot, the large majority of private pilots and every air operator in Canada who is flying float planes and single-engine land planes fly under these dangerous VFR rules because it is the easiest possible way to fly. When I went to flight school we all happily went flying through the mountain valleys, before we had our licences, "under the level of the mountains" despite our abject fear because it's a very basic skill. Now if you're pilot starts getting down in the few hundreds with reduced visibility, sure that's more challenging flying but talking about a guy who's at 11,000' as a ".. ." is just being uninformed.
The pilots who have "parked it in" have done so because they have either had too many system failures to handle, or they have flown below the legal minimums, or they have made a mistake that they didn't notice. And those that do will never tell you any of these things before you jump onboard, which is what makes the idea of everyone going through the motions and including you in the details of our preflights a bit silly. I mean the weather could be 5/8 SM and 100' overcast at our point of departure, hovering at minimums at our destination with known icing en-route and the flight is perfectly safe in a well-equipped aircraft with plenty of fuel that has good weather at the alternate. But explaining all of that would be kind of tedious and I doubt most medics and passengers care to know all the details of how safe they are and why they are safe. They don't know what's required or what the concerns are, and they don't need to.
If you are uncomfortable with the legal minimums and requirements your concerns should be addressed to Transport Canada so they can change the laws or to your governing body so they can increase the pilot experience, aircraft equipment or minimum weather requirements for their contracts with air operators.
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