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THE FLYING DOCTORS...

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
Published date24 June 2022
Publication titleHuddersfield Daily Examiner
Mountain rescue teams in the national park are trying out an innovative new way to reach injured people, which they hope will be operational in the near future

With 18 million visitors a year, the national park is one of the UK's busiest destinations. During the summer, paramedics with the Great North Air Ambulance Service (GNAAS) rescue 15-20 injured people a week from treacherous terrain. If it's difficult to land an aircraft, mountain rescue teams must set off on foot which means injured people may have to wait a long time for medical care.

Director of operations Andy Mawson, a paramedic at the GNAAS for 11 years, began to wonder if it would be possible to rescue people more quickly by jet suit. Andy began working with Gravity Industries founder Richard Browning, inventor of the jet suit and, in 2020, they met in Cumbria for a test flight.

It took Richard just 90 seconds to reach the top of Bowfell, an otherwise arduous 25-minute climb on foot.

The 1,050-horsepower jet suit - which you can see in action on YouTube -

uses five mini jet engines, two attached to each hand and one built into a backpack. The jet engines use the same fuel as commercial airlines, Jet A1, and can also run on road diesel.

Its current speed record is 85mph but, rather than soaring through the sky like Iron Man, Andy says the medics will fly just a few feet in the air.

"In one of...

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