Page 6 - Volume 17 Number 4

OrthopedicKing AHigh CIt’s 0630 on a brisk Wyoming morning, and the Air Doc, Inc. King Air C90A’s are already loading up for another day of shuttling orthopedic personnel to clinics scattered around the state. This is big country, where specialized medical care can be limited in the outlying areas. But, doctors and nurses with Premier Bone and Joint Centers, supported by its Air Doc subsidiary, will be seeing patients in several remote locations today, making a difference and saving hours of road transportation.Started almost 40 years ago in Laramie, Wyoming by orthopedic doctors David A. Kieffer and Robert J. Curnow, the circuit-riding practice began with a hired limo, then moved up to single-engine general aviation aircraft. However, an over- the-weather pressurized airplane was needed for reliable schedule keeping. The Beech King Air has proven to be an ideal solution for making the rounds of Premier Bone and Joint Centers; four of the ubiquitous C90A’s now serve the Air Doc, Inc. flight department. The 33,000-square-foot main clinic is4 • TWIN & TURBINEstill located in Laramie, but ten out- state clinics are located in Casper, Cheyenne, Douglas, Gillette, Green River, Rawlins, Riverton, Rock Springs, Torrington and Wheatland.Operating A Company AirlineWe visited with Cody Diekroeger, Air Doc chief pilot, to gain an overview of how the fleet is operated. Based at Cowboy Aviation in Laramie, Wyoming (LAR), where routine servicing and staging is performed, the King Airs are dispatched daily to the Premier Bone and Joint locations, serving 80-percent of the state’s population with orthopedic care. “Our longest leg is out to Gillette, about an hour’s flight,” Diekroeger said, “and most trips can be made in 30 to 45 minutes.” The normal load averages 2.8 passengers, but there are flights when every seat is occupied. The airplanes can seat seven, or even eight if the lavatory seat is pressed into service. “Before electronic medical records came into vogue,” said Diekroeger, “we would have 250 pounds of patient charts and records to load in the aft baggage area, but now a couple of computers take their place.”Flown single-pilot, the small King Airs are perfect for the mission. Diekroeger says they have looked at other options, but nothing else fits them as well. “We once had an engine seize up, for an unknown cause, on a departure out of Casper, a non-event with a return for a landing on the good engine. So, the owners aren’t too interested in flying single-engine.”Four pilots are employed; each flies 250 hours or so per year, usually allowing them to be home every night and with most weekends off. Air Doc pilots will be flying around 15 days a month, on average. No seniority-rank bid system is used, because most trip requirements work themselves out with the pilots’ availability. In general, a pilot is assigned to a particular airplane for his flying. When a ship is down for major maintenance, its pilot takes time off. Pilot turnover, as you might expect, is minimal; it’s good duty.Recurrent training is done at SimCom, with whom they’ve had a good relationship; that training certainly paid off when the PT6A seized. The engine-out scenarioby LeRoy CookAPRIL 2013io