Extras · 1 of 4
A typical shift
At an air ambulance base you take over the aircraft at shift change: walk around, check fuel and oil, review weather for the whole region and decide up front what you will and will not accept. Then you wait, sometimes for hours. When the call comes you get a location and a patient, not a diagnosis, because the medical detail is deliberately kept from you so it cannot pressure your weather decision. Take off, fly, land somewhere that is not an airport, wait, fly to the hospital, refuel, write it up. Tour and utility flying looks different: many short flights, tight landing areas, and passengers or a load under the aircraft all day.