Vincent Blake | May 27, 2008
THE rapid rate of change in technology makes planning difficult, particularly if you are locking in the purchase of life-saving equipment that will be in service for decades.
Mike Hill in the RFDS's Mike Victor Whiskey he future-proofed
Making minor improvements for each generation is too slow for Dr Hill and the other professionals at the service.
He wants as much future-proofing as he can get because the service will keep it for 20 years, 20,000 hours or 20,000 takeoff and landing cycles - whichever comes first.
The plane and the fit-out is an $8 million project, so he wants bang for the non-profit group's buck. "We've tried to future-proof the aircraft," he said before taking delivery of MVW from Total Aerospace Solutions, a firm of specialist aero-medical engineers in Albion Park, south of Sydney.
"The problem is you can't totally future-proof it. Ten years ago, who would have known that Bluetooth would have been a standard? So how do you fit out an aeroplane with future capabilities when you don't know what the future is? It's a project I've been working on for a couple of years.
"A lot of time when you come to a fit-out like this, people just look at what they have got and look at where they are coming from.
"This is a new approach. We're saying to the engineers: this is what you need to do the job and to do it better. Forget everything that has happened before. Look at what we need to do it better. Don't even look at what you're doing now and try and improve it."
The result was a couple of firsts, he said.
"It the first of this type of aircraft to have a power-operated cargo door," he says. "It has never been done before. We can open the cargo door by pressing a couple of buttons."
Another first was also practical. The south-eastern division of the RFDS takes in NSW, Victoria, Tasmania and the eastern half of South Australia. That means they deal with four ambulance services that each have a different stretcher trolley system.
The RFDS came up with a bed that clips on to the top of an ambulance stretcher.
"So for the first time ever, we will be able to go from one ambulance to the next without having to be hampered by what type of ambulance drives up to the aircraft."
Another first was Bluetooth internal communications gear, Dr Hill said.
"With standard aircraft headsets, there are long trailing wires. This has been fitted for Bluetooth headsets," he said.
"We're having some issues. But hopefully we will get that fixed. They are full-on aviation headset, with cups over the ears and a boom microphone. A heavy-duty item.
"There is only one manufacturer that does them. They were not made for use inside the aircraft. They were made for ground handlers when aircraft were having a push-back or Formula One racing crew so they could get around cars and not be hampered by wires.
"We've had them modified to work inside the aircraft because of a feedback side-tone issue. The manufacturer is happy to do that.
"The guys tell me we've saved 100kg in the all-up medical fit-out over the previous gear."