Aeromedical evacuation has been used in the military for a century now. In fact, the first recorded event wherein an aircraft was used to move wounded personnel was 100 years ag0 – in 1917, in the Sinai Peninsula. A Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2c arrived 30 miles south of El Arish and flew out a wounded soldier from the Imperial Camel Corps. The soldier had been shot in the ankle during the Bir el Hassana raid. People right then and there knew the value of aeromedical evacuation since the travel time to bring the soldier to safety was only 45 minutes. The same trip on land would have been about three days, with considerable more effort.
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| Image source: Wikipedia.com |
The following decade saw the beginnings of a mass practice in aeromedical evacuation as a number of services opened worldwide. With aircraft technology still being experimented on, however, the services were flawed, and not always successful.
France and the U.K. continued to work on aeromedical evacuation, proving its efficiency in Somaliland in the 1920s. The Airco DH.9A was modified as an air ambulance, and in that span, the French were able to evacuate over 7,000 personnel. It continued on until the Spanish Civil War when air ambulances became the mode of choice for wounded soldiers.
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| Image source: health.mil |
Scott Beale is a huge part of Tempus Applied Solutions’s success in the aviation industry. To read more about him and Tempus, check out this blog.
