Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Coast Guard Alaska aviation question

I enjoy this show, because unlike most of the "reality" shows out there, the drama is real, and people actually behave professionally.

Last night they have on two different cases where they pick up a victim by helicopter - one a Coastie with an eye injury, the other a small child suffering seizures - then fly to a nearby airport, where a C130 meets them and takes the one victim and flies to Anchorage, for advanced care.

I'm definitely not questioning their operational decisions; it looks like they picked the assets available for fastest transport of the victim. It seems though that smaller aircraft, and more of them would be a more efficient way to do the same medevacs. I'd be curious if anyone can share insight on the aircraft they select.

Having a limited number of assets that can operate in the extreme conditions that Alaska provides requires something that is multipurpose.

While a C-130 is certainly a far bigger aircraft than necessary to medivac one patient, it it's cross purpose is long range search and rescue and resupplying remote areas.

It has the ability to get in and out of rough, short strips and fly in some unbelievably nasty weather.

Having a Honda Jet, or KingAir, or something similar would be nice, and quicker, but they cannot do what a C-130 can do.

Ed

The mother of the child suffering seizures seemed not to mind the use of the C-130 at all.

Great multipurpose aircraft, and I'm sure the Coasties use it for all sorts of things. Wonderful expenditure of our tax dollars, IMHO.

All of that, plus it gives the crew some much needed training. Aviation skills need to remain sharp. Nothing does that better than a real life mission.

Well spent tax dollars.

They use C-130's a hurricane hunters that says something right there.

From my experience with SAR, working for the Navy and sometimes with the USCG, it depends upon what assets are available. Sometimes the USCG had a Falcon 20 available, and they would use that, other times they used the C-130. Sometimes, depending upon locale, the helicopter was the fastest thing available. Each case is different, and highly dependent upon available assets and location.

The training the guys get doing those missions cannot be done anywhere else. When they leave Alaska, they can pass on those lessons to the next generation of military aviators. It's got to be the best training in the world for high risk flying. kwg

The C-130 is going to be flying most of the time, anyway. It might as well be doing something. When I flew C-130s in the Marine Corps we burned up tons of fuel "practicing" and training. We always felt better when we were doing something useful. Getting diverted to do search & rescue work was always welcomed.

Racing medi-vac patients to medical treatment was sobering, but very fulfilling. When some died en route it was a bummer. Hauling the dead was no fun, but it was an important mission that we took very seriously.

The C-130 is an incredibly capable airplane. My shortest full stop landing was only 1200' from the start of the pavement and that is nowhere close to the record. With additional internal fuel tanks we could stay airborne over 20 hours, but we couldn't carry much of anything else. 290 knots cruise speed and very maneuverable, capable of landing on dirt, gravel or ice.

They aren't very pretty to look at, until you need one. Then they can be quite beautiful.

I had forgotten about the short rough field capability of the C130, so that makes sense. Seems ideal, though, for something like a V22, which could land anywhere and then transition to level flight - and be faster than any helicopter.

The C-130 may be the best value for the dollar that the DoD has ever spent money on. Truly an incredible airplane with no end to it's useful life in sight.

I believe the Coast Guard ones are pretty old.

Most of the villages in Alaska are only accessible by air. What road system there is is only around and connects the major population centers through a narrow corridor i.e. ANC-FAI-PDB and the Canadian border.

Most of the time helos are prepositioned in forward areas such as Cold Bay and Dutch Harbor for reasons other than medevacs such as ocean SAR and fisheries enforcement during the various commercial fishing seasons. In Cold Bay they switch between Jayhawks and Dolphins depending on the time of year and what's going on. The rest of the time everything is home in Kodiak.

Most of the time those of us on the AKPEN and Aleutian chain rely on Life Flight medevacs based out of skAnchorage. However there are times when the weather is so bad (which is about half the time out here in this [bleep]' blowhole) that all flights are shut down. That's when the Coasties step in.

They've never turned down or turned away any of our medevac requests. Of course these have been life or death emergencies and we would never have made the requests otherwise. There have been times when they've had to come into and land in 60kt+ winds. In those cases we find an open, alternative landing site for them so they land and take-off straight into on-coming winds and not worry about cross-winds or ground turbulence caused by structures. We even have night-vision friendly portable landing lights to set up alternative landing sights and all of us in public safety are trained how to set them up.

The normal proceedure is to take the helo into the village, pick up the patient and get them to the airport in Cold Bay where a Coastie C-130 or commercial Life Flight can take them into skAnchorage which from out here on the tip of the AKPEN is about 650 miles away.




Aleutian Hell and the Bering Sea would eat a V22 for lunch.